Game Night
by x2Nerdy4MyShirt
Summary: After multiple months of playing the same old board games at the group's game nights, Patterson decides to inject one of her nerdy passions and see if her friends will be willing to play some Dungeons & Dragons. Cross posted on AO3
1. Chapter 1: The Case

Chapter 1: The Case

A knock on Patterson's door made her jump up from her chair as if she had heard a gunshot. Heart racing, she ran over to the door and peeked through the peephole, seeing a fish bowl view of all her friends arriving for their game night.

"C'mon Patterson, let us in! This beer won't chill itself!" Kurt said.

Patterson took a few deep breaths and nervously shook her hands a few times to get out some of the jitters before opening the door. She knew tonight would be a hard sell for most of them; up until now all their game nights had consisted of board games or at least started as board games before everyone got too drunk to play or follow the rules. She was hoping that tonight's game of Dungeons & Dragons would at least make it off the ground, she knew if she could just get her friends to try it, they would actually love it.

"Hey guys! You made it!" Patterson said with a huge grin as she swung the door open.

"Why wouldn't we make it? It is your turn to host game night remember?" Reade said jokingly.

"Yeah, so what is the poison tonight anyways? You were very cryptic on the phone, you just said it would involve an adventure and some dice rolling." Tasha said warily as she got up on her tiptoes so she could see past everyone into the dining room where the table was set up.

"Uhm, well, it definitely will be an adventure... Before you guys freak out though, I just want you to know that this game is for EVERYONE, not just a stereotypical subset of the human population, and all I want is for you guys to give it a try. Ok?!" Patterson said sternly but hopefully. She knew this was the first hurdle of the night, having her friends be open minded enough to dive in to D&D.

"Oh boy… This doesn't sound good." Jane says skeptically as she looks over at Kurt to see his reaction to the news.

"Oh. Em. Gee. Peppermint Patty, is that a DM screen over on the table?! I love role playing!" Rich said excitedly as he rushes past the rest of the group to check out what Patterson has setup for them.

"Of course, I should have guessed that you already have taken a trip down D&D lane, but if you call me Peppermint Patty ONE more time, I will kill your character." Patterson said wagging a finger at Rich.

"Woah woah woah. Patterson." Reade puts his hands up in front of him as if surrendering. "This is not what we signed up for. Look we know you, and Rich, are nerds and like to let that nerd flag fly high but we're just normal people. I don't think dressing up as some fictional character and swinging swords and talking in some weird old-world language is what we were looking for when winding down from work."

"HEY!" Rich shouts.

Patterson jumps in before this goes from bad to worse. "Technically… that's LARPing. Which is still totally cool for anyone to do as well. This, however, is Dungeons & Dragons. You will still be playing characters and acting as if you are them; but you do not have to dress up, unless you want to… which is called cosplay." She sees a room full of blank stares except for Tasha who has a sly grin on her face giving Patterson the patented 'I told you so' look she had come to be very familiar with over the course of the last few months of dating. When no one interrupts her, she continues on. "Look, plenty of people play D&D. Did you know even Vin Diesel plays? I dare you to call him a nerd. If you did he would probably just be proud to say he is one. Look, we don't have to play this after tonight. I just wanted us to try something new, and I think you guys would actually really like it. I've even done one of the harder parts for you and created your characters, not to mention homebrew a world I think you guys will be able to handle a lot easier than a fantasy one."

Patterson watches as Kurt shifts a little at the mention of Vin Diesel, unconsciously crossing his arms in front of him. She knows for a fact Kurt thinks of him as one of the ultimate cool guys. _Got him_ she thinks to herself. _That means Jane should be game too, kind of goes hand in hand with being married, now I just have to persuade Reade._ She looks towards Reade who still appears to be unconvinced.

"You guys can't seriously be thinking about going along with this?" he says towards Kurt.

"Well, I think it's only fair we give it a try. We are already here, the beer is in the fridge, and it looks like Patterson has put in a lot of work to do this for us." Kurt looks to Jane who just has a wry grin on her face. She knows any time Kurt can try to be like one of his idols, he won't pass up the opportunity. "We should do it, for Patterson."

"All right, I'm in." Jane says as she walks towards the table, giving Kurt a kiss on the cheek before lacing her fingers in his to bring him with her.

Reade looks pleadingly at Tasha, who has been very quiet throughout this whole conversation. "Oh come on. What? Are you afraid you're actually going to like it? I promise none of us will call you a nerd afterwards if that's what you're so worried about." Tasha says jokingly knowing Reade is very self-conscious about how others perceive him.

Reade lets out an exasperated breath before finally cracking. "Ok, fine. But no one mentions this at work, understand? No one." Reade shakes his head and walks over to the table to sit down next to Rich who hands him a beer.

Tasha gives Patterson a wink and as she starts to head towards the table, Patterson mouths "Thank you" as she walks past. Now that what she thought was going to be the hardest part of the night is over, the big ball of nerves at the pit of her stomach has relaxed and she only feels excitement over getting to share something she loves with her friends.

Patterson walks over to the table and after everyone settles down she goes over some of the main rules and concepts of Dungeons & Dragons. She tells them all about how they can basically do anything they want, they just have to roll a d20 for it and add what Patterson tells them to add off of their character sheet; then depending on that number outcome Patterson will tell them what happens and continue on. To make it super easy on them, she already drafted up character sheets for them as well as laid out a set of 7 polyhedral dice in front of each person.

"You made me a bard?! They're so lame!" Rich exclaims, picking up his character sheet and shaking it at Patterson. "Change me out, I want something different!"

Patterson glares at him. "You are totally a bard and you know it! Plus you're thinking of an older iteration that was the brunt of the jokes. In 5th edition, they can actually be quite cool! Just give it a chance. If you still hate it, you can kamikaze your character and roll a new one. Deal?"

"Fine. This edition's bard better be the shit, 'cuz I deserve nothing less than that. I'm fucking Rich Dotcom, I get to be the coolest character." Everyone tries to hide their grins as Rich says this, they know it's just his antics as well as how highly he thinks of himself – but they love him anyways.

"Ok, ok, ok. If everyone has settled down and there's no more questions… Why don't you all read off your character's class. For simplicity sake I made everyone Humans mainly so you didn't freak out about having to be some other race you hadn't heard of."

"What if-" Rich starts.

"No! Only if your character dies. Then you can come back as whatever class AND race that you like. We are trying to get everyone's feet wet so they want to keep playing, not scare them off by you being some crazy Chaotic Evil Tiefling trying to secretly kill the party!" Patterson sees Rich's eyes light up, realizing what she said she quickly adds, "Which is also not a good idea if you come back as that. You're trying to work together, not be a mole."

Before Rich can say anything else on the matter, Tasha speaks up "Soo… I'm playing a Rogue. I don't know why, but there you have it."

"Ok miss C.I.A., no reason at all you're a rogue." Rich says pointedly rolling his eyes earning him a death glare from Tasha.

"I'm a Paladin. What's that mean again?" Kurt questions looking towards Patterson. "Am I some kind of drone?"

"No, a Paladin is essentially the front-line guy who takes a lot of the hits and damage for the group, they also more or less follow the law – I made yours Chaotic Good instead of Lawful Good because not everything is black and white, so you'll be able to act according to your gut for what you feel like the "good" choice of a situation is."

"So, basically, he's himself?" Jane mentions as she pokes at his stomach eliciting a small chuckle from her husband.

"That's kind of the theme here. I thought it would be a lot easier to try out something new if you could play characters that are somewhat close to who you actually are in real life. If you guys end up liking it, down the line we can always try out different classes and races in a more fantasy campaign setting…" Patterson trails off.

"Hold up. I think just for tonight will be just fine." Reade interjects. "I'm a fighter."

Rich does a fist pump towards Reade as he starts humming the chorus of Eye of the Tiger.

"See? Bard." Patterson says with a toothy grin. "Ok, last one then we can begin, Jane what are you playing?"

"I'm a Monk… which is pretty cool if it's the kung fu kind."

"That's exactly what it is!" Patterson says excitedly. She now feels like everyone, besides Reade, is actually quite stoked to be playing her game. She thinks with time though, she can get him to open up and really enjoy his character.

"Ok, if everyone is ready…" Patterson leans in and pauses for dramatic effect. "It's time to jump in to tonight's game of Dungeons & Dragons."

"You are all at the FBI headquarters, crowded around one of the televisions watching the news report yet another murder that happened during a robbery in NYC. This time it is at The Met and the curators are keeping quiet about what item was stolen overnight. This is the third time in a month that a heist with a similar M.O. has been used. First, it was the bank robbery in Texas that the robbers dressed up in Western garb, then the Jewel heist in LA where the culprits were dressed as cat burglars - literally as they had worn a full size cat onesie featuring both a head and tail. Now you see on the screen a group of four people on the security feed image, each posing with different weapons: one person has two Japanese looking swords, another with nunchucks, the third with a long circular piece of wood, and the last one seems to have a pair of small three pronged weapons from a video game that you don't really recognize - each has one long blade protruding from the handle flanked by two shorter blades that come out of either side of the base."

Before proceeding, Patterson looks up to see everyone fully engaged, leaning towards the table just like they do when they are on a real case at work. "The FBI and CIA have been tasked with stopping these attacks before more lives are lost, and more items are stolen. You know that Pike, your completely awesome amazing Forensic Scientist and quartermaster has already been hard at work deciphering some clues that were left behind at each of the first two crime scenes as well as prepping some new gadgets for you. What would you like to do?"

"We can do anything we want right? Anything at all?" Kurt questions as he leans in further to rest his elbows on the table.

"You can certainly try." Patterson gives him a smirk before continuing, "Anything you would like to do just let me know. I will tell you whether it's something you need to roll for or if the information is just freely given - no roll needed."

"Alright, well it sounds like we should go see this Pike first, right? We need more information on the older cases if we are to stop these guys." Jane says looking around at everyone else.

"Yes, let's go see Pikey-poo." Rich says with an ornery look towards Patterson. "For the record I did not in any way shape or form call YOU any of the aforementioned nicknames I'm not allowed to say or death do my character and I part."

"I'm starting to regret this." Patterson deadpans but without any malice behind it.

"Let's touch base with… Pike… and then if we need more info maybe I can contact the CIA to see if they have any information the FBI doesn't?" Tasha suggests. "Sound good, Reade?"

"Huh? Yeah, sure. Let's get more information… and more beer." Reade examines his empty bottle, knowing that he definitely needs to crack another one open since the only way forward is through the game.

"Ok, great! So you guys go into Pike's lab to meet up with her." Patterson continues on but slightly adjusts her voice for her characterization of Pike, _"Hey, glad you guys finally got my text! I have some new information that came in after examining the first two crime scene files."_ Patterson pauses here to see if anyone is going to take the initiative.

"Uh, yeah, so Patterson… I mean Pike… what did you find out?" Kurt supplies.

 _"Well it seems like we are dealing with some big showboaters. Think almost Moriarty-level egos. The obvious clues were left right in front of our noses. At the scene in Texas they left a Lucky Cat in the bank vault, and at LA they left a rat stuffed animal. The other weird thing is how they cut the security camera feed. They make sure at each scene that they are seen before leaving, only for a second, before the feed cuts again. But I've noticed each time they have cut it, the Snow or Static that it shows seems to have a pattern that I haven't been able to crack yet. The computers here are currently analyzing that. LA and Dallas scenes have both been cleaned up, scrubbing the chance for any extra information other than what we have in these files, but maybe you guys can find something at The Met that was missed?"_

"Ok. Mission one, we head to the Met, maybe grabbing a hot dog on the way so we aren't finding clues on an empty stomach. Even Scooby and the gang had to eat before solving mysteries." Rich pauses before adding, "Oh, also, great and powerful Pike, do you happen to have any gadgets at your disposal that could help us?"

 _"Now that you mention it, I do. I just got these back from the lab."_ Patterson changed back to her own voice cadence again, "She hands you each two small vials of red liquid. So make sure and mark that on your character sheet." Switching back to Pike she adds _"Here are our latest formulas for a healing draft. For these to work, all you need to do is make sure that you empty the vial into your mouth and swallow the liquid. The effect will be immediate and it will help anyone who is injured or has fallen unconscious get back up."_

"Sounds like we may be getting our asses handed to us soon." Tasha jokes. "Is there anything else the pretty lady has for us?"

Patterson blushing faintly adds _"The only other thing I have here are your COM links as well as a distress button. Think of this as a life alert when you've fallen and can't get up. Once pressed it will immediately send whatever backup we can muster, but it can only be used once per day - so use it wisely."_ Patterson continues, "So Pike hands you all the COM links and goes to hand someone the distress butt-"

"I GRAB IT! I want the button!" Rich exclaims holding out his hands towards the notecard Patterson is holding with the details of the distress button.

"There is no way in hell I'm letting Rich have that button!" Tasha chimes in. "Can I fight him for it?! Because I totally will!"

Patterson chuckles at the banter. "How about you guys just roll me a Dexterity check to see who can grab it from Pike first. Just roll a d20 and then add your modifier you see under DEX on your character sheet, the highest score gets the item."

"Ok, fine, I rolled a 14 plus my Dex thingy is a 3, so a 17 for me." Tasha shifts towards Rich to see what he rolled.

"You know, should I have advantage on this or anything for being the first one to say I wanted it? I feel like that should count for something right?" Rich drums his fingers on the table a little frustrated. When Patterson shakes her head at him, he sighs rubbing his face with both his hands. "I rolled a natural one."

Tasha starts laughing, she may not know how everything in D&D is supposed to work, but she knows from Rich's reaction that he just rolled the worst he possibly could. She gladly leans over the table to grab the notecard from Patterson, sticking her tongue out at Rich for good measure. "I'll take that, thank you!"

Patterson describes the encounter while trying to keep her composure and not break out into a laughing fit, "Alright, well Rich as you went to grab for it you tripped over a line on the floor... and faceplant, taking 1 point of damage. This allows Tasha to step forward and claim 'The Big Red Button' item for the team."

"Good, it's bad enough when Rich has the reins in real life, we don't need it in this game too." Reade says flippantly.

"Mark my words, I will press that Big Red Button if it's the last thing I do." Rich warns. "I can never resist a big red button, no matter how big the boom might be."

Jane takes a pull of her drink as she finishes taking notes about the objectives and the crimes. "Alright, well, we now have some information and gadgets. Let's go check out The Met and get some imaginary food on the way."

"You arrive at The Met with no problems, you downed your hot dogs along the way. You see police on site roping off one of the exhibits. As you walk closer, you see some chalk outlines on the floor as well as about 5 officers going around trying to dust for fingerprints and gathering evidence. There is one Detective standing near the middle of the room rubbing his temple with his pen while talking to some of the museum staff." Patterson says this as she gestures her hands out to the group to proceed.

"I got this." Rich says confidently as the group lets out an exasperated sigh. "I walk over to the detective and tap him on his shoulder to get his attention. _'Hello, good sir, I would like to inquire as to the nature of this crime as well as let you know that if you have any evidence you need to let us have it.'"_

 _"Who the fucking hell do you think you are? You look like a civvy to me, why should I give you any details let alone NEED to give you evidence?"_ Patterson drops her voice low with a distinct stereotypical New Yorker accent.

"Ouch, is this because I called you Peppermint Patty earlier? Because that was out of game and this is in game." Rich says deploringly.

"No, it's not. It's because you did not tell the detective who you are working for, so since he does not recognize you, he knows you aren't one of his officers and thinks you're a civilian." Patterson states. "Go ahead and roll a Diplomacy check for me, we will see whether he recognizes the badges on the other group member's lanyards."

"Finally! This is my jam! Stand back and watch the master work." Rich exclaims before rolling. "Ok so that would be a 23 total, because I am THE shit."

"Alright." Patterson starts before switching back to the Detective, _"Oh I'm sorry, I did not know you were with them. This case has everyone's panties in a bunch, it never looks good when there are multiple strikes and The Force is made out to be fools. There's no way they could have possibly got away with this unnoticed, and yet they did."_

 _"Well technically they're with me, but whatever, semantics."_ Rich mumbles as his character before proceeding, _"What is so out there about this job that they couldn't go unnoticed? I mean I know this really awesome hacker who could do some pretty crazy schemes…"_ Rich trails off at the eye rolls of his friends at the table. _"Anyways, do you guys know what was stolen? Was there maybe some kind of animal figurine or toy left behind?"_

 _"Well, you tell me how you can break in to The Met, steal one of the most well known statues that was here on loan from Italy, and whisk it out through the museum without any alarms being set off. Our relations with the Italians are about to take a nosedive once they are notified that Michelangelo's David was the statue that was stolen. There was no animal figurine or toy left that we have come across, but you're welcome to look for yourselves. We did however find a hat that someone found."_ Patterson switches back to herself as she explains the look of the hat, "It appears to be a checkered hunting hat with a viser both on the front and the back. It also has two ear flaps that are tied at the top of the hat."

"We should inspect the hat closer, it is no coincidence that these guys would all of a sudden drop their hat and leave it behind. Maybe we should see if there is anything else around that they may have missed." Tasha says to the group sitting around at the table. "Reade, do you want to help me look around?"

"Sure. Just tell me what I need to do, and I'll do it." Reade mutters as he takes another sip of his beer.

"Ok guys, just roll me an investigation check. It's the same d20 die and add your Investigation that is listed on your character sheet."

"Ok, I show a 17 total." Tasha says happily waiting for Reade to roll his.

"Uh, well, I'm not sure what this means. I rolled my die but it just shows some kind of weapon symbol on it…" Reade trails off while shifting positions to see if he can figure out what number that is supposed to be.

"OH! That's a mace and that means that you rolled a Natural 20!" Patterson yells excitedly. "That's the best roll you can ever have! We have our first natural 20 of the night!"

"I guess being better than Rich at everything just comes naturally to me." Reade jokingly says with a sly smile towards Rich, who is trying to hide his excitement about Reade's roll.

"Well even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then." Rich says with a smirk of his own.

"Ok so Tasha you look around and you notice that there are 2 body chalk outlines and they seem to be positioned near the statue's base as if they were trying to create a physical barrier in front of the statue. You also notice that there is some kind of substance on the surface of the base, but can't make out what it is supposed to be. The hat just looks like a normal hat to you, sorry. Reade with your natural 20, you notice the substance Tasha points out, but you catch that it seems to also be on the inside of the hat. You think that if you were to perhaps shine your black light on it, you may see something written there." Patterson supplies gleefully.

"Ok, I will pull out my blacklight and shine it on there. What does it say?" Reade asks with a steady voice, trying to hide his peaked interest that he may have found a clue to this mystery.

"On the hat you see the following numbers: 19, 24, 25, 14, 3, 21, 7, 6, 18, 7, 17, 21, 13, 17, 24, 4, 7, 20, 4, 17, 21, and 14." At this Patterson pulls out yet another note card to hand the group with the numbers listed out in the same exact order as when she rattled them off to the group. "Also on the base of the statue you see in the blacklight a drawing of the back of a hand with the first two fingers extended. Off to the right of the drawing, just barely visible you also see the number 18."

"Why would they be throwing us the Peace sign?" Reade says confused. "And, why would they put numbers by it?"

The group goes silent as they take in all these clues and what it could mean.

"Maybe it is GPS coordinates of the next attack?" Jane says while surveying the numbers. "No, never mind far too many digits and not divisible by 8." She trails off thinking even harder over the puzzle in front of her. She knows that the answer as to be there, she just cannot make it all fit just yet.

"Well V is the roman numeral for 5. Maybe 5, 18 is significant? The time maybe." Kurt interjects as he leans closer to the notecard in the middle of the table, hoping that something will pop out at him."

"These numbers have to have some significance. They were left here by the robbers on purpose. Who takes the time to actually DRAW something in a substance that can only be seen under a blacklight? Especially when you're trying not to get caught stealing one of the greatest artifacts of all time!" Tasha says frustratedly. She knows Patterson well enough to know that this should be a somewhat easy puzzle. It should be a softball of a case, and that fact is what is currently fueling Tasha's growing frustration.

"Guys, guys, I think I have it. What if…" Reade starts but doesn't get to finish. Right as he is about to throw in his hypothesis to the group, all of their phones buzz.

Real life is calling, and they have to get back to the office in order to solve an actual case. "Oh come on! I put so much work into this, why does the universe have to give us an actual hot case now?!" Patterson complains.

"Don't worry Patterson, this case…" Kurt says as he points to the table in front of him, "is FAR from over. We will figure out this puzzle and stop the bad guys, just like we do in real life."

"Oh paladin, my paladin." Rich says in a sing song voice.

Tasha, Jane, and Reade all chuckle at Rich's quip before agreeing that they too are excited to pick this game back up next time. Right as everyone was about to leave the apartment to head to the office, Reade pauses by the door turning back towards Patterson with a big grin. "I know how to solve this clue, and I will get the satisfaction of figuring out one of your puzzles." With that he steps through the door and off towards the office.

Patterson thinks that while she would have preferred they be able to play for the 4 or 5 hours she had planned for, that last sentence from Reade made the night worthwhile regardless. She is grinning from ear to ear as she follows everyone else out, locking the door behind them. Before they get out of earshot, she yells at them "So when is the next game night?"


	2. Chapter 2: Take Two

Chapter 2: Take Two

It had been a week since their last game night. The case that they got called away on ended up sending them to Toronto for the last 5 days. Apparently the mass murderer thought he would run and hide in the country that is most known for being polite and nice. Finally the group was able to get another night off together and scheduled the continuation of their D&D game. Even Reade seemed to be trying to hide some excitement towards this next session.

"Ok, so tell me again, why did Rich have to make a Diplomacy check with that guard? What does that even mean?" Reade asks Patterson as they are putting up tonight's drink selection in the fridge.

"Well normally it is a diffusing the situation type of scenario that diplomacy is used, but I like to use it in my games for trying to get information out of an authority figure as well. I mean if you had to talk to the President and ask him questions about some FBI case in real life, you would be diplomatic in your approach, right?" Patterson smiles at Reade while pouring herself a Maker's on the rocks. "That is the great thing about D&D, you can customize it to whatever you want it to be. In situations like what we encountered with Rich last time, we could have used either persuasion or diplomacy, since there is a lot of overlap. For instance, persuasion would have been if Rich gave a compelling argument to the guard for why you guys should have that information - 'Your group has solved x many cases', 'You're the best investigators in the world', 'You want to help The Force out and put murderers away' etc; whereas I feel like diplomacy would have been used if Rich let the guard know that he was with the FBI and they were on the case as well, the guard probably would have just given the information freely with no flack or backtalk. Since Rich came off as more of a civilian asking questions, rather than a member of an FBI unit, it made the guard ill at ease with him; that is why I made him do a diplomacy check to basically get back on his good side."

"So, essentially in this case, it was used to smooth the waters that Rich had stirred up?" Reade says in a questioning tone.

"Exactly. See you're going to get into this after all. I told you D&D was for everyone." Patterson chuckles before turning to Tasha. "Hey babe, did you find my lucky die in the car?"

"No, and I don't know why you need it any ways. I thought dice were made to be random no matter what." Tasha says with an incredulous look towards her girlfriend.

"This one is different! It was one of my first ones and it ALWAYS rolls really well!" Patterson starts to look around the game table frantically.

"Well, kiss me if I'm wrong, but I am pretty sure that if it rolls well for you, then NONE of us should be helping you find it. The last thing we need is a DM rolling Natural 20s against us." Rich chimes in. "How about we help you after you don't kill us off tonight?"

"Did you take it? I saw you poking around my desk at work. If you took it, I promise not to hurt you… too much." Patterson tries to glare but fails miserably since there is no real malice behind it.

Rich raises his hands up in protest "I swear by my pretty floral bonnet that I had nothing to do with the theft of your golden die." Rich continues on by crossing his heart before play acting like he was dead.

Trying to psych herself back up, Patterson mumbles to herself, "Ok, it is probably just misplaced somewhere in the apartment but the juju should still be with me!"

"You are one with the die and the die is one with you" Rich bows as if in front of a sensei.

"Ok, this is just getting weird guys." Jane interrupts, turning to Patterson. "If this die is important then of course we will take the time to help you find it."

"Hey is this die you are looking for completely gold colored, and each number is surrounded in a circle, and is extremely hard to read?" Kurt squints at a die he found accidentally when he tried to sit on the couch.

Patterson quickly runs over to hug Kurt, "Yes that's it! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Where'd you find it?"

"Well, it kind of found me." Kurt says sheepishly. "I attempted to sit on the couch, and it was stuck between a couple of the cushions."

"Ok, now that we have found the most important marble, should we get started?" Tasha purposely calling the die the wrong name just to get a rise out of Patterson.

"You know what, I'm going to just let that slide because I'm so glad it was found safe and sound." Patterson states haughtily while stroking her good luck die. For good measure she sticks her tongue out at Tasha before continuing on to the rest of the group, "Yes let's go ahead and get started if everyone has their drinks and is ready."

After everyone gets gathered around the dining room table once more, drinks in hand, Patterson starts off the night with a recap of the previous game night. "Ok where we last left off, you guys had a case where a group of people were pulling off heists all across the country. The latest incident was at The Met and they had stolen Michelangelo's David. You went to the scene and talked to the detective there to find out that the only item the officers found at the scene was a hat. Upon further investigation by Reade and Zappata, you were able to find hidden messages using a blacklight." Patterson pauses for a moment before adding, "What would you guys like to do?"

"Now's your time to shine Reade. You've been holding it over us this past week that you know what the message means, so spill." Tasha leans towards Reade trying to pressure him to answer.

"Technically, I said I know what the clue was, not what it meant." Reade clarifies before continuing, "I think that it is a cipher. What I don't know is what it translates to." Reade looks over to Rich who has too much of a grin on his face. "What, do you know something we don't?"

Rich is caught off guard, as he did not realize he was smiling; at that moment he was just enjoying the sight of his friends starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Truth be told he had already figured out it was a cipher, what it meant, and where it was supposed to lead. He wanted the group to figure it out together though, not for him to railroad and just solve everything right off the bat. That was part of what made D&D fun, figuring clues out together. Rich knew he had to deflect, he did not think his friends would be too keen on him withholding such information even with his good intentions. "Can't a guy be happy that a stick in the mud like yourself has opened up to the nerdy world of D&D?" For the cherry on top he plasters on a huge smile. "I legitimately am happy to see us all here around the table having fun. As for the clue I think you're right about the cipher. It is the only thing that makes sense given the numbers provided. Now we just have to find the key to solving it."

"Ok, I'm assuming that Patterson can't help us since she's running this game?" Kurt looks over to Patterson who shakes her head at him. "Ok so it is just us five. I'm sure we can figure this thing out.

Jane hums to herself as she tries to process what information has been given. "Hey, for the numbers on the hat, do they appear exactly as on this card?" Jane asks staring intently at it.

"Yes, they appear exactly as on the card." Patterson tries to reign in her grin that has started to creep across her face. She wondered how long it would take until someone took a closer look at the notecard itself.

"Why Jane? What are you seeing?" Reade leans in to try and inspect the card as well.

"Well it may be nothing, but it seems like after certain numbers there's more of a space than the others…" Jane trails off as she tilts the card back and forth to see if it's just a trick of the light.

"Here." Tasha says as she hands Jane the ruler that Patterson had left on the table next to the pencils and a stack of blank gridded paper.

"Yeah, look here! After the numbers 25, 21, 13, 24, and the second 4 there is an extra couple of millimeters before the next number in the sequence. It's not much but it just throws your eye off just a smidge."

"Ok, give me the full sequence with the spaces." Tasha grabs a pencil and paper to write down what Jane is seeing.

"I think it is: 19, 24, 25, space 14, 3, 21, space 7, 6, 18, 7, 17, 21, 13 space 17, 24 space 4, 7, 20, 4 space 17, 21, and 14." Jane repeats as Tasha frantically transcribes the numbers down.

"This looks like it should make a sentence, so if Reade… and Rich… are correct, then this is the message we will be decoding!" Tasha excitedly announces. "Now just to figure out how to decode it. Too bad we can't just plug it into one of the super computers at work." Tasha glances up at Patterson wide eyed, "Wait, can we?!"

Patterson laughs warmly, "NO! You guys cannot cheat and use the computers at work, I see 5 computers right here in front of me. You can do this!" Patterson points one by one to each of her friend's head as she says this. "I believe in you guys, you can figure it out."

Quite a bit of time passed with everyone trying out different letters in all of the positions. Patterson and Rich exchanged glances, a couple times Patterson widening hers slightly with a head tilt as if to say 'Come on, jump in and help.' She knew he had already figured it out, he told her as much at work after they had been called away. She was surprised when he told her his plan to let the rest of the team figure it out though, it was a very touching notion from the guy that normally tries to rile everyone up. Rich responded with a hand wave that he tried to pass off as shoo-ing an insect when Reade had suddenly looked up at him.

He felt like something was going on with Rich but couldn't quite put his finger on it, so he just shook his head and turned to Kurt, "Hey remember last time there was that picture they painted with the backwards peace sign? You thought it stood for the Roman numeral 5, but what if it was just a letter 'V'. V - 18. There is an 18 in this sequence, so what if we put the letter V in that spot and see if that gives us direction for the others."

"That could actually be it." Jane says while scribbling above the numbers Tasha had written down. "Now we just need to try some common words that match up with the amount of numbers for each spot. Why don't we start with the smallest word and see what we can get, it looks like both the 17 and the 24 are used in multiple places."

After another fifteen minutes or so they finally got the correct combination. "'You are invited to high tea'? What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Tasha leans back in her chair exasperated.

"Elementary, my dear Tasha, it means that we've been invited for high tea." Rich smiling at his choice of words.

"So, you're saying that the next place is going to be somewhere in England?" Jane asks turning to Rich.

"Well, where else would 'high tea' be such a big deal at?" Rich innocently replies. He looks over to Kurt whose wheels seem to be turning.

"Wait, wait. Patterson, that hat you described… did it look like Sherlock Holmes' hat?" Kurt tries to keep his frustration under wraps, he thought he recognized the description of the hat but could not place it until England was mentioned.

"Why, yes, I suppose it does!" Patterson grins ecstatically. "You could most definitely see this hat on the well-known sleuth of London."

Kurt turns to Rich and fixes him with a stare that could freeze hell. "How long did you know?"

"I don't know to what you are referring. Once high tea was mentioned, it made the clue obviously lead to England - which when added with the hat and the 'backwards peace sign' that is not actually a backwards peace sign, it all just fit." Rich states simply, hoping no one asks him anything more about the clues.

"What do you mean a 'backwards peace sign' that isn't actually a backwards peace sign?" Kurt is genuinely baffled that it is not actually a backwards peace sign.

"Let's just say when you go to England do NOT throw up a backwards peace sign at someone unless you want to get punched in the face." Rich demonstrates the hand gesture before continuing, "Been there, done that. Thought it would be funny, and in the end I ended up with a bloody lip and a black eye. Zero out of ten, do not recommend doing. It's basically their version of 'the bird' but somehow worse."

"Why am I not surprised you thought it would be funny to flip someone off in a foreign country?" Reade jokes. "Did you even know the guy?"

"Actually, it was a girl. In my defense she was drunk and I was taught never to hit a lady." Rich points out before quickly adding, "Aren't we getting off subject here? We are supposed to be tracking the bad guys!"

"Oh, we will circle back around to this. Any scenario where you get your ass kicked by a chick is one I want to hear over and over again." Tasha chuckles as she takes another sip of her beer. "But yes we should probably figure out where we need to go in England, or London, or wherever."

"Well, we're about halfway through game night now. Why don't we take a break here? We can all get some food and some more drinks, and you guys can discuss where you think you need to go. Then we can pick back up with whatever place you guys would like to head to?" Patterson suggests as her stomach starts to growl. The pizza guy was supposed to be arriving soon with their order she placed ahead of time.

"Yes, pizza and beer sounds good to me! We can pick up after." Jane stands up to stretch. She didn't realize how much time had already flew by, _guess you really could lose yourself in a game_.


	3. Chapter 3: Tea Time

Tea Time

"Ok so let's go over the plan again so we all have it straight." Rich starts while trying to finish his last piece of his pizza. He raises a greasy finger for each part of the plan, "First, Tasha is going to call the CIA to see if they have any extra information. Second, Kurt is going to get in touch with Interpol to make sure everything is kosher with us being in England, we don't need to be getting arrested and detained when we're trying to help the world. Hopefully after steps one and two, we will have a better idea of where we need to go."

"I think the best bet city wise is London. Clearly them leaving Sherlock's hat is supposed to point us there. Where in London, I don't know." Jane finishes washing off her plate at the sink before resuming her seat at the dining room table. "Zappata you've been there a lot haven't you? I thought you mentioned an old CIA case a while back that took place there. Do you know of any high profile targets?"

"The problem is, I know of too many high profile targets." Tasha says with a wry grin. "I definitely think whatever they hit will be high profile, but also something attainable. I don't see them getting past the security of Buckingham Palace or anything. I can contact Keaton though, maybe the CIA has picked up chatter in this alternate world." Tasha finishes her beer with an eyebrow waggle towards Patterson. She hates to admit it, but so far being able to spend time with her girlfriend and her friends playing make believe has actually been really fun. It almost makes her feel bad for giving Patterson such a hard time about her 'nerdy obsession' when she first found out that she was a part of an internet D&D show.

"Sounds like a plan to me. Anyone else need a fresh one?" Kurt holds up a few beers and hands them out before shutting the refrigerator door and sitting back down next to his wife. "Alright, let's get crackin'. Those guys already have a pretty good lead on us."

"Alright, let's jump back into the game then." Patterson takes a sip of her whiskey while waiting for the first part of their plan to begin.

Tasha noticing the lull picks up on the cue and begins, "I call Keaton up and see if the CIA has any intel on this band of lunatics robbing secure places."

"Ok, you do so, since he is technically your boss and you two aren't always on the greatest of terms, why don't you give me a Diplomacy check to see how much information you're able to gleam from him." Patterson luckily had already been thinking about this. One of the most important aspects of being a Dungeon Master is listening to your players and try to devise what your answers may be to their questions and how you will react to their plans. The break gave her more than enough time to sit quietly contemplating all of the possibilities as they planned out loud.

"Well, hopefully he won't be an asshole this time," Tasha chuckles as she rolls her die and looks for the Diplomacy skill on her character sheet. "That would be a 13 total."

"Not bad, he lets you know that the CIA has not heard much chatter except for that there seems to be something about to happen in London. He has tried to check with some of his informants in the area, but they have not provided any more information. He also says that the more well-known criminals seem to be laying low right now for some reason."

"Ok, well at least that gives us confirmation that it is London we need to go to. Now we just have to narrow it down to what place in London." Tasha taps her pencil on the table thoughtfully. "Kurt, I guess you're up."

"I guess I would like to, uh, call up Interpol. Let them know that we have intel that this crew is about to hit somewhere in London. We want full cooperation with British government and police. Do I roll one of these things," Kurt holds up a d20 die, "and add in my Diplomacy as well?"

"Yes, actually, you do." Patterson is beaming across the table at Kurt. She was so worried that her friends wouldn't catch on to the game, but it seems she may have underestimated them.

"Looks like that would be 18." Kurt leans back in his chair, crossing his arms just like when he is at the office on a conference call with other agencies.

"So you call up Interpol, they let you know that they've been keeping on this case. The confirm that they have also heard chatter about something going down in London. Their intel points to something in or near the heart of London, but they have no more leads other than that. Cooperation between FBI, CIA, and British police and intelligence has now been established. You guys now have jurisdiction to carry out your investigation."

Kurt with a toothy grin says, "Guess we need to head toward the heart of London."

"Yeah, but to where?" Reade says as he is about to pull out his phone to look at a map.

"I can do you guys one better." Patterson quickly runs off to the bedroom and after a couple of loud bangs, and light cussing, she comes back out limping slightly. "Here is a map of London, this should help your investigation."

"Wait, was that what was up in the closet that was so important I couldn't hang up my clean clothes yesterday?" Tasha points off to the bedroom while still holding on to her beer.

"Maybe…" Patterson plasters on her most charming smile. "I told you it was for a good reason, I wanted to make sure you guys got the full experience of figuring out the riddle. I knew if you saw the map prior, you would automatically be able to piece together everything."

"Alright, flatterer. You're off the hook." Tasha winks at Patterson before turning back to Reade. "Do you see anything interesting near the heart of London?"

"Well, there's quite a few places depending on how big of a radius you go from what I believe they are referring to." Reade starts to list of everything he sees that could be potentially a place to hit, "There's Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park is close by as well… um… the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, London's Roman Amphitheatre." He trails off as he starts looking closer to see what else there is that could be a good target.

"Wait, isn't that stuff near where Sherlock lives?" Rich interjects as Reade is now within inches of the map. "Look for Baker Street. It's near one of the bigger parks in London if I remember correctly."

"Hang on a second, let me look" Reade starts looking at all the streets near big parks as Rich suggested, turning the map every few seconds to make it easier to read some of the street names.

"How did you know where Sherlock's home is supposed to be at?" Jane leans forward onto the table to peak over at the map in front of Reade.

"I watched a behind the scenes video that was shot for the Sherlock series. They took you around to a few of the sets and one of them was 221B Baker Street. They mentioned on there that it is actually a real place in London." Rich supplies while pulling out his phone, "Let me shoot you the link to the show. You should really check it out, it's one of the best done series that I've ever watched. The Moriarty character is such a badass."

"Why am I not surprised that you idolize Moriarty?" Patterson shakes her head disapprovingly towards Rich.

"Hey, he is a very dynamic character and the actor fully embodies him. I did not say I wanted to be him," Rich turns to the rest of the group stage whispering, "but I totally want to be him."

Patterson just rolls her eyes and looks back over at Reade who has a finger placed on the map in a very familiar place to her.

"I think I found Sherlock's home." Reade starts tapping the map excitedly, "Look it is just outside this center loop of London."

"Awesome, well maybe we should start there. I mean, they left his hat behind after all, and maybe this time around it was supposed to give us more than a hint at their next costume change." Jane looks over to Kurt who seems to be lost in thought.

"I agree, let's go there first. At the very least it would rule out one of the possibilities, and if we get lucky maybe that's where the next heist will be." Kurt nods to Jane and looks back to Patterson to see what the story will throw at them next.

Patterson looks around at everyone, they all nod in agreement. "Alright you guys fly over to London. You make your way down to 221B Baker Street to find a huge crowd of people as well as police present."

"Let's push forward and see what all the commotion is about." Kurt looks around to the others, "We may have been too late."

"You push forward and see that some kind of vandalism act has been committed. The police have roped off the section of housing around the 221B door as well as trying to get people with cameras to put them away." Patterson explains the scene and the pauses allowing for her friends to jump in again.

"Can we talk to the officers there and let them know we're the FBI liaisons they should have been notified of? Maybe they can give us more info on what exactly happened and was left behind." Jane turns toward Patterson expectantly.

"You catch the eye of one of the constables, who waves a hand toward you beckoning you to come over to her." Patterson switches voices to a British accent " _Hello dove, you must be with the FBI. Our superiors mentioned you may be arriving soon. We have just a normal vandalism spree here."_ The constable points towards the wall behind her. _"Doesn't make much sense, does it? Normally it is tagging that goes on, not a full sentence."_ Patterson switches back to her normal voice before continuing. "You see on the wall next to the 221B door the following 'Hurry or you'll come in second'. The words are written in a really impressive cursive that reminds you of older times."

"Older times? Like almost Latin looking?" Rich asks trying to form a picture in his mind.

"Not that old. Think maybe like in the era when Sherlock Holmes was created. Back when the cursive writing could be seen as elegant. Here," Patterson hands Rich the notecard that she had created for this clue.

Rich looks at the clue seeing that Patteson is right. It looks very reminiscent of 1800s writing. It was in cursive as Patterson said, but what he could see by looking at the notecard was the capital letters were in the looping calligraphy. _Wait a minute..._ "Patterson, is this notecard written exactly as it is on the wall?"

"Yup, that is exactly how it appears." Patterson keeps her voice even. She knew that it would not take long for anyone looking at the card to notice that the word "Second" was actually capitalized as well.

"Guys, look!" Rich shows the card to the group. "On the card you can clearly see that is says 'Hurry or you'll come in Second.' It has a capital S, that has to be important."

"Ok but what does it refer to? They could just be saying that we won't be able to beat them if we don't hurry." Reade takes the note and examines it for himself before passing it off to Jane.

"Maybe, but I would tend to agree with Rich. It has to have some significance or else it would have been written with a lowercase 's'. We just have to figure out what it is referring to and quickly, we probably don't have much time." Jane taps the notecard against her hand, trying to piece together what it could mean.

"What if it is referring to a contest?" Tasha leans towards the table, resting her elbows on the table and her chin in one hand. "What if this is a contest to these people and if we 'lose' we will be coming in second place? Are they just trying to let us know what is on the line?"

"Wait, wait, back up. What did you just say?" Rich says coming out of the fog of thinking.

"I said maybe they are just letting us know what is on the line?" Tasha says in a questioning tone.

"No, no before that. What did you say before that?" Rich starts to get a little excited. "You said something about second place?"

"Yeah? I said maybe it is a contest to them so if we lose we will be coming in second place to them?" Tasha still is not following what is peaking Rich's interest.

"What if that's exactly what it is! Reade let me see the map! I saw a special on this place in London that had a vault full of… YES! That's it! The London Silver Vaults fall within the heart of London! That's what it is referring to. Coming in second in contests, the runner up always get a silver medal. Tasha I could kiss you!" Rich looks over to Tasha with a huge smile on his face.

"I'll pass on that, but I am glad you seem to fill your free time with a lot of actually useful information." Tasha chuckles as she pats Rich on the shoulder.

"I'm always interested in learning where valuables are placed. Do you know how much that stuff down there is worth?" Rich catches Kurt's glare and quickly adds, "Not that I would ever do anything criminal with that information. It's strictly for my own knowledge, and can we make sure to remember that because I watch those things we just solved this clue?" Rich smiles widely at Kurt who just shakes his head.

"Ok we need to head over to those vaults. Maybe we can catch them before it happens." Kurt adds looking towards Patterson.

Patterson behind her DM screen rolls a d20, in her own mind fixing values to it for the outcome. One through ten, they fail to make it in time; eleven through twenty, they make it in time to catch the criminals in the act. After rolling, and seeing the outcome she takes a deep breath before beginning, "While on your way to The London Silver Vaults, you see tons of police cars speeding by heading in the same direction that you are heading."

"Shit! We start running to the vaults, hopefully the criminals are still there!" Tasha hurriedly motions for Patterson to continue.

"You guys arrive to the vaults and see that the constables are already on the scene keeping the public away from the entrance to The London Silver Vaults. It seems that you may have just missed the criminals. You see an Inspector standing with the constables giving them directions for what to do next."

"Let's go talk to the Inspector and see what he says." Reade rubs his forehead, frustrated that they were so close to catching the criminals.

Patterson drops her voice a little lower and applies her generic British accent, _"Shite. These blokes are relentless. I take it you are the yanks who came over to help stop this nonsense?"_

Reade in character replies, _"That would be us. What can you tell us about the situation?"_

 _"Well they are bloody professionals. The London Vaults are notorious for being locked up tight. They not only came in and made off with a good portion of the expensive silver, they apparently had tea."_ Patterson switches back to her own voice before adding, "You see that the Inspector is very perplexed as to why this gang would decide to sit down and have a cup of tea."

Reade continues as if he was talking to an actual Inspector, _"Can you show us where the tea set is. I think that's a clue for us. In New York, they left us a note saying that we were invited to high tea. Also did you see if they were dressed up in any sort of costumes?"_

"The Inspector lets you know that they haven't got the surveillance videos back yet from tech but they should know shortly. He also shows you where the tea set is setup at, and that nothing has been touched yet. You see in front of you a full tea set with a teapot, a creamer, a sugar holder, and two cups - one cup is empty, but the other one is full. You also see a small piece of paper that is rolled up with a bow tying around it, shoved in the spout of the teapot." Patterson switches to the Inspector's voice once more, _"I'll let you guys get to it, let me know what you find. I'm going to go check with tech about the CCTV and surveillance videos to see if there's any more information we can give you."_

"Let's examine the note!" Jane says excitedly, tapping her hands on the table's edge in front of her.

"We should also feel to see how warm the tea is, or the teapot. That would let us know how close we were to missing them. On second thought, just the teapot. They may have messed with the tea." Rich adds before turning back to Patterson for what they find.

"This is easy enough to do without any rolls. The teapot is warm to the touch but seems like it has been sitting there for at least an hour or so. The note you pull from the teapot, Jane, is rolled up like a scroll and seems as if the paper has been aged somehow." Patterson hands over the aged scroll she made for Jane to read out loud to the group.

"Wow you actually aged this and everything? You'll have to let me know how you did that, that's so cool!" Jane examines the scroll before letting the group know what it says, "On the scroll it has 'It's rude to be late. Tut-tut.' written in normal handwriting."

"Ok so we got scolded for not showing up on time. Now what?" Kurt says looking around at the rest of the group.

Rich contemplating their next moves, perks up as a thought occurred to him, "Can I take a closer look at the tea set itself?"

"Sure, roll me a Perception check." Patterson says nonchalantly.

"That would be a 17 total." Rich says excitedly, he feels like he may be on to something.

"The tea set is primarily a white ceramic but it has gold inlays as well as blue and gold coloring in various patterns around the top of each of the items. Within the patterns you also see some markings similar to runes but you can't really make them out." Patterson waits and when no one says anything she continues on, "The Inspector returns with a laptop and shows you the security feed their techs were able to recover. Once again you see a set of four people staring up directly at the camera. One is dressed up as the queen, another is dressed up as King Arthur, the third is dressed up like Sherlock Holmes with an exotic looking pipe, and the final person is dressed up in a brown and white pin striped suit with sneakers and 3D glasses."

"Oh no! Not The Doctor!" Rich exclaims with bewilderment "They are ruining that good name!"

"Doctor, who?" Reade has no idea what 'doctor' that Rich is so upset about. The only ones he knows of that are famous around the world are the celebrity kind that has their own TV shows.

Rich's eyes widen as Reade seems to hit the nail on the head,"Exactly! I'm very surprised you knew who they are referring to. You don't seem like the sci-fi kind of guy; I was thinking you were more along the lines of anything that involves a ball and a bunch of sweaty people."

"No I mean, who _is_ the doctor?" Reade pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to clarify his question because he still has absolutely no clue what is going on, if anything he is even more confused now.

"Well, that is always the big question now isn't it?" Rich says delightfully in a British accent, now realizing Reade just accidentally stumbled on a core tenet of the mystery surrounding The Doctor.

"This must be one of those 'who's on first situations'." Reade says with a shake of his head. "So you mentioned the Sherlock having an exoctic pipe, what does it look like?"

"Roll me a Perception check and find out." Patterson was shocked that anyone picked up on that tidbit, let alone that quickly.

"I think that is a 13?" Reade says while double checking his math.

"Alright, with that roll you do notice the same kind of markings similar to that on the tea set. The same color scheme as well. Not your normal Sherlock pipe."

"Ok so we have the note, the tea set coloring and markings, and the pipe matches the tea set?" Jane asks Patterson as she takes down some notes.

"That is correct." Patterson waits a moment while everyone is quietly thinking over what these clues could mean. She looks up to the clock to see that it has gotten quite late in the night. "Alright guys, how do you feel about maybe calling it here for tonight? We seem to be at a good stopping point and we can pick up from here on the next game night?"

"I think that may be a good idea, my brain is getting all fuzzy from the beer and the late hour." Reade says while rubbing one of his eyes. "I think we should let this soak in and try to figure out where these guys are going next."

The rest of the group reluctantly agrees, and they get their stuff around and ready to go. Tasha and Patterson wait until everyone has left before getting their apartment picked up and calling it a night themselves.


	4. Chapter 4: The Game Is Afoot

Chapter 4: The Game Is Afoot

"I have been wracking my brain ALL week over this, Patterson!" Rich is running to catch up with Patterson who is desperately tapping the button, trying to close the elevator doors before Rich can hop on.

Patterson sighs in resignation as Rich is able to slip a foot into the doors to prevent it from closing. "Like I said in the lab, and in front of the women's restroom, and just five minutes ago at the water fountain, I am not going to confirm nor deny your hypothesis. It needs to wait for game night, which is only in an hour." She was initially really entertained how excited Rich was about their story until he kept bombarding her with theories trying to gauge her reaction to see whether he was on the right track.

"I know, I know, but hear me out ok?" Rich pleads as he steps in front of Patterson so she has to look at him. "I have been using every free second I have had this week, and the clues still don't seem to fully fit together; what I think is going on, is that we have only found part of the clues. We missed something somewhere at the crime scene!"

"As I said before, I can neither confirm nor deny that statement." Patterson drones on in a monotone voice, as she had the last 3 times Rich has theorized a solution to her.

"You know you really sound like an AI when you do that. It's kind of impressive." Rich smiles at Patterson as the elevator finally reaches the Lobby. "I will see you in an hour, and I can't wait for you to actually respond to my brilliant theories."

Patterson chuckles and says her goodbyes as she mentally adds to her to do list _Get more whiskey_. She meets up with Tasha outside as they had planned so they could go grocery shopping together. They had planned on restocking the beer and snacks stash before the game tonight.

"You know the crazy thing, if anyone else saw this, they would think we were getting ready for the big game that is in town tonight." Tasha picks up a few of the heavier grocery bags, letting Patterson take the lighter ones.

"We _are_ getting prepped for the big game tonight, just one that is so much more important than the one at MSG." Patterson bumps Tasha on the arm playfully as she picks up the rest of their purchase. "You know you don't keep having to take the heavy ones, I appreciate it, but it's not necessary."

"Anything I can do to help my queen, I will do." Tasha gives Patterson her signature smirk before continuing on out the door back to their apartment.

When Tasha and Patterson finally walk up to their apartment, they see they are not the first to arrive. Rich is already at the door bouncing on his feet. "There you two are! Where have you been? I have been out here trying to politely knock for 5 minutes. Your neighbor Mrs. Klowsky has already said if I wasn't gone soon she would call the cops. I tried to tell her I was a cop, but she didn't believe me."

"Well I can't blame good ol' Helen there. She is actually very, very, bright for someone who is in her late eighties." Tasha smiles warmly at the thought of her own interactions with Mrs. Klowsky.

Patterson just chuckles and pulls out her keys to unlock the door. "You know you're actually early right? Game night technically doesn't start for another 10 minutes."

"I just thought it would be good to be here to help set up, you know? Make sure everything is in order." Rich trails off as he heads towards the table to set his gaming supplies down.

"You mean help us set it up so we can immediately start playing, that way you can start giving your theories in game quicker?" Patterson says dryly as she helps Tasha put up the groceries.

"If that is an unintentional side effect of me being a good friend who came by early to help out, then so be it. That will just have to be my burden to bear." Rich places his hand over his heart solemnly, as Tasha makes a gagging sound from the kitchen. "Hey, now, that was at least partially true!"

"Alright, alright, guys. Let's just get everything set up before everyone else arrives." Patterson starts sitting out the cookies and other snack items they had picked up at the store.

After only a few more minutes everyone had arrived, surprisingly they had all actually gotten there just a bit before their game night was intended to start. _Apparently more than just Rich are excited to see what will happen tonight,_ Patterson thought to herself.

Kurt rubs his hands together as he scoots his chair closer to the table. "Ok, let's get in to the game. Jane and I were talking on the way over and we have some ideas."

"You and me both. I tried to bounce some ideas off her today, but she showed as much emotion as a Buckingham Palace guard." Rich takes a bite of his cookie fixing Patterson with a faux glare.

Jane clears her throat, "Kurt and I were thinking that maybe we missed something at the crime scene? These clues do seem to try to point to something in general, but maybe we missed the pin that holds it all together?"

"That's what I've been saying too!" Rich exclaims, relieved that he and at least a couple people in the group are on the same page. "I think we should revisit the crime scene with a fine tooth comb and see what we missed."

Reade nods in agreement and looks over at Tasha, "Well what do you say, partner? Want to help comb over this scene with me?"

"Sure, we can take another look." Tasha picks up her d20 and waits for Patterson to give the go ahead before rolling her die.

"You and Reade check out the scene again, roll for it and add your Investigation modifiers to your roll." Patterson really hopes that they roll high enough to give them another clue. She thought she had given them enough to give them a direction, but she has been second guessing herself ever since Rich started throwing theories at her.

"Alright well, I didn't roll so great. That's only a seven total for me." Reade sets his pen down a little harder than necessary, disappointed.

"I rolled a twenty-two." Tasha clearly pleased with herself had the most adorable little shimmy she did as she said this, getting chuckles out of her friends, as well as a slight blush to the cheeks of Patterson.

"Because you got twenty-two, as you comb back over the crime scene, the note, and the surveillance videos, you start to notice a pattern between the three. You notice that the note is made to be aged so much that it is starting to flake apart. You also notice that the runic patterns you saw on the tea set and on the pipe are actually a mixture of runes and images. You see images of animals as well as what appear to be humans in the designs. Some of the human figures are a hybrid of a human body and an animal head, one in particular has the head of a dog. As you step away from the tea set that is sitting on the table, your foot slips ever so slightly on something. Looking down you see these small particles under your feet. At first glance it just looks like finely crushed dirt or gravel, but there's something about it that has gotten your attention. You reach down to pass your hand over it, and that's when you realize how gritty it is. It's sand." As Patterson describes this, she sees her friends lean closer to the table, completely entranced in her descriptions. She knew then, that this was the key to the puzzle the group was searching for. She could see them all mentally applying the new information to their own theories, trying to fit the puzzle together.

"Sand? Why would there be sand in an underground, pristine, store with all those polished silver items? If that's not a clue I don't know what is." Reade writes down on his notebook 'sand' and underlines it three times.

"Could the runes and imagery be from the Central American or South American cultures? Aztecs, Mayans, or Incas?" Jane pauses as she mulls the clues over.

"That's a possibility, but they weren't well known for old paper scrolls. That seems more like a European type feature." Kurt runs a hand absentmindedly over his scruffy beard, the ultimate thinking act for any man.

"Wait, why did you just call the note a scroll?" Jane leans forward grabbing the replica note off the table to examine it again.

"Well, because, it was rolled up and tied like an old scroll. It's like what squires deliver in all the old Camelot movies and shows. Why, what are you thinking?"

"If this was intended to be a scroll from the get go, that could be another clue itself. That means this was not just a teasing note from the people we were chasing. This," Jane rolls up the notecard and ties a bow with the provided twine, shaking it at the rest of the group, "is another clue. We need to look for a place that is well known for having old scrolls, possibly old enough to be decaying."

"Decaying? That always makes me think of old dead bodies." After a moment's contemplation RIch's eyes light back up, "Is anyone else getting creepy mummy vibes here? Maybe we should go find Indy before going forward."

Tasha's eyes widen as she picks up on Rich's meaning, "As much as I hate to admit it, Rich is right." Tasha pauses at the incredulous looks from Reade and Kurt, "I'm not saying we go get Indiana Jones, guys. I'm saying he is right that it seems to be pointing to something in Egypt. All of these clues do fit for it being Egypt. The sand, the runes and images could be hieroglyphics, hell, the scrolls could be trying to represent the Library of Alexandria! Plus, you know, Egypt _is_ where the mummies live."

"Technically mummies aren't living per se, but there are some different opinions on that front. Did you know that… Ow!" Rich stops abruptly as Tasha slaps his arm to get him to refocus. "I know I look big and buff but that hurts."

"Oh, please, that was the lightest of slaps. Besides if this last heist was any indication, we're better off not wasting any time. We want to try to figure out where we're supposed to go and catch the bad guys in the act or even arrive before them. We need you to put your thinking cap on for the clues, not go off on a tangent about mummies." Tasha pauses for a second, looking at the red hand print starting to form on Rich's bicep, "Sorry, I may have slapped you a little harder than I intended."

"Ya think?! If the drunk college girl has holstered her slappers, maybe we can try to figure out where in Egypt we are supposed to go." Rich pointedly looks at Tasha's hands before sighing and turning back to the rest of the group.

"There has to be something here that we are overlooking again. At all the previous crime scenes, they had left clues to let us know where they were heading. They are teasing us, wanting to see if we are smart enough to catch on." Kurt looks back over the sparse notes he had scribbled down when Patterson relayed all the new information.

"Alright, I agree with you there, but what else could we be missing? We have the sand clue now, and supposedly hieroglyphics, the scroll, and the surveillance footage really only had an out of place pipe that matched the tea set." Reade leans back in his chair, putting his hands on the back of his head, clearly frustrated.

"Jane, can you read off what the scroll actually said again? Maybe like the 'come in second' clue we just solved, there was another meaning or something about the wording we missed." Rich holds his pen directly above the paper, ready to write down exactly what the note says. _Maybe writing it down myself will help me see what the hidden agenda is._

"It says 'It's rude to be late. Tut-tut.' It looks to be normal handwriting from what I can tell, and nothing seems to be capitalized out of the place."

"The first part seems too benign to mean anything else. But the second part…" Rich trails off as a thought starts to emerge from the fog, "What if the second part isn't the criminals reprimanding us for being late, but it is another clue!"

"Tut-tut?" Jane says questioningly, trying to see where Rich is going with his train of thought.

Rich starts bouncing up and down slightly, energized by his break through. "Yes, exactly! What if we take 'Tut dash tut' and separate it into two words." Rich writes down "Tut Tut" on his paper and shows the group, tapping his pen excitedly against the words. "Just look. Tut Tut. If we go with the Egypt theory, this could be referring to Tutankhamun, or as most people know him by, King Tut."

"Wow, how did we miss that before?" Reade leans over to look at the original note sitting in front of Jane. "It seems so obvious now. If we saw that earlier we probably would have pieced together the images being hieroglyphics as well as the blue and gold color scheme on the tea set, all leading us to Egypt."

"Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. What we need to do now is look forward. Where in Egypt could they be going? The Pyramids?" Kurt turns to Rich and Tasha who seem to have the best grasp on that area of the world.

"Don't look at me, just because I know King Tut, doesn't mean I know the area of Egypt." Rich holds his hands up out in front of him.

"What no documentaries you watched on the area?" Jane jokes, earning her a mocking laugh from Rich.

"Actually, I think I may have seen one that could be beneficial." Tasha chimes in, seeing the shocked looks on everyone's face, she quickly adds "Ok, Patterson had it on, but I watched some of it. Anyways. They were saying how they had found some tombs and they were taking some items to go on public display, and one of the show stoppers at an Egyptian museum was this bust-type thing of King Tut. Like a mask or something? I don't know it's been awhile since that episode and I wasn't really paying too close attention."

"Wait, you mean his death mask? The thing that literally went over his head as he was laid to rest in his sarcophagus?" When Tasha nods at him, he shivers and goosebumps rise up on his arms and neck, "Creepy. I was right there were some mummy vibes in this case."

"Did that show happen to say which Egyptian museum it was housed in?" Reade starts to pull out his phone to Google where it could be.

At that moment Patterson reaches under the chair she was sitting, grabbing the map of Egypt she had taped to the bottom. "Here you go, here's a map of Egypt."

"How many of those things do you have hidden in our apartment?! Is there a speakeasy hidden behind one of the bookcases too?" Tasha just laughs at the absurdity of Patterson going around the house hiding little knick knacks everywhere for their game.

"There may be a few easter eggs hidden around, but you guys won't know them until you get to things in the story, so they're safe for now." Patterson winks at Tasha, eliciting an eye roll from her girlfriend.

"Alright, love birds, back to the story." Rich points his pen at Patterson and then Tasha, "Do you remember which museum it said on the show?"

"All I remember was it said an Egyptian…"

"Wait, do you think it said The Egyptian Museum?" Reade asks, emphasizing the "The" in the name.

"I mean, yeah, it could have been. Is there a 'The Egyptian Museum'?" Tasha asks as she sees Reade holding a finger over a section of the map.

"Well in Cairo, located right off The Nile River, there is a 'The Egyptian Museum', maybe we should try there first. They did specifically say 'Tut' twice. Maybe they were trying to clue us into that being the next target." Reade passes the map to the other members of the group so they can see what he is looking at as well.

"I think it's worth a shot. Anyone in the group want to go a different route?" As no one responds with any objections he turns back to Patterson, "I guess it's off to Cairo."

"Sounds good, let's go ahead and take a quick snack break here before we get into the Cairo part of our story." Patterson says as she stands up to stretch and head off to the bathroom.

After taking care of business, Patterson heads into the kitchen, sidling up next to Tasha who is leaning against the back counter with a smile on her face. "Penny for your thoughts, pretty lady?"

Tasha gives Patterson a kiss on her forehead, wrapping her arm around her shoulder. "I don't know, I just am really happy I guess. I never would have thought I would enjoy this _game_ as much as I have. Though I am sure a big part of it is it allows me to spend even more time with you and our friends… and Rich."

"Uh huh, don't act like you don't like him. You can put up a front around everyone else, but this is me you're talking to, I know you secretly like him as a friend."

"Yeah, well, everyone else doesn't need to know that. That's part of our _thing_ , ya know? We act like we hate each other, but if we were to ever speak about our true feelings out loud, it would ruin everything." Tasha nods solemnly, trying to keep the grin off her face.

"Right, well, I'm just glad you seem to be enjoying yourself. Don't get me wrong, it's super important to me that our friends have fun, but..." Patterson trails off plucking up the courage to continue her thought, "I just, you know, really _really_ want you to have fun, because, well... I, I-love-you." Patterson finishes the sentence so fast that it just sounds like a single word escaped her mouth.

Tasha's eyes widen in surprise, she has felt the same way for a long time but the timing of Patterson's revelation caught her off guard. "You're just saying that because I agreed to play D&D with you." Tasha jokes, leaning in to lightly set her forehead against the side of Patterson's head, "I love you too, babe."


	5. Chapter 5: Walk Like An Egyptian

Chapter 5: Walk Like An Egyptian

"Hey! Come on guys, you're the last ones to come back to the table!" Rich shouts across the apartment at a cuddled up Tasha and Patterson in the kitchen. "You can retire to the bedroom _after_ we catch the bad guys."

Tasha flips Rich the bird as Patterson, who has a slight blush to her cheeks, sighs and slowly walks away from the kitchen towards the dining room table. "Alright, alright. Don't get your man-panties in a bunch."

"They're silk actually, and I'm more of a boxers guy. Panties are for special occasions."

"Ugh! Ew, I did not need to know that!" Tasha exclaims as she takes her seat at the table. "The last thing I want is to picture you in some frou frou pink panties."

"Who said anything about pink? Are you projecting or just fantasizing?" Rich bounces both eyebrows up and down toward Zapata, eliciting another groan from his friend.

"Ok, let's reign it in guys." Kurt interjects before they can get more off topic, and so they can stop talking about what Rich wears underneath his clothes.

"Kurt is right, we need to jump back into the game and we are heading to Cairo. We want to try to get there before the criminals have a chance to steal the mask." Reade scoots his chair up closer to the table and adjusts his pen and paper setup in front of him, gearing up for whatever Patterson is about to throw at them next.

"Alright, if everyone is ready, we will jump back into the game." Patterson pauses here, and as there are no objections from the table she continues on, "You are still working alongside Interpol who are helping you through the various government hurdles. So, you arrive in Cairo with no problems. Where would you like to go?"

"The museum, right guys?" Jane exchanges looks with her friends, who nod back to her in turn. "The museum."

"You guys get to The Egyptian Museum." Patterson shrugs and brings up both hands in front of her, along with a slight downturn of her mouth. "Whoever is leading this endeavor, go ahead and roll a Perception check."

Kurt leans over to see what Jane's character sheet says next to Perception, and upon seeing a plus four next to it, he says "Jane, I think that should be you. It looks like you have the best shot at getting a good roll. My character is not very wise, go figure."

Jane rolls her die and adds her Wisdom modifier, plus four, and grins as she sees her outcome. "That would be a twenty-one total!"

Patterson lets out a slow breath that she did not realize she was holding while Jane rolled for the check. "Good, good. Whew. Alright, so here is what you see as you walk up to the museum… In front of you stands a huge building, a very light red in color, that would be the equivalent of about 2 or 3 stories high. In the grounds in front of the entrance, where you're standing, you see some native trees as well as a small rectangular pond. There are various small statues surrounding the pond, one of which is a scaled down version of the sphinx. There are no police officers around, everyone seems to be going about their day as normal. You walk up to the museum and head inside the towering arched entrance, it stands fifty feet high and has a bust in the middle of the arch, welcoming all who enter. Inside the large fifteen foot high doorway, there are school children that appear to be on a class field trip looking at one of the exhibits housing old Egyptian pottery that appears to be ceramic and made out of the clay of the region. You see a smattering of adults around as well as workers at the museum. No one seems to be acting out of the ordinary, no emergencies going on, nothing."

Reade raises his eyebrows as Patterson says this, "Maybe we actually beat them here? Can we see if we can find the Mask of King Tut?"

"Easy enough, you go up to one of the workers and ask for directions to the mask. They show you the way there, walking you past various relics of the Egyptian empire. You see some sarcophagi, statues of the old rulers, and after walking around for about 5 minutes through the various rooms, you get shown to King Tutankhamun's Death Mask. It is sitting on a pedestal in a display case, perfectly fine." Patterson explains the scene and waits to see what her friends will do next.

"Ok guys, what do we do?" Reade looks to the rest of the group, he is totally at a loss and starting to second guess they chose the right location or artifact that was supposed to be stolen.

"I think we need to do a stake out. The Mask makes sense with all of the clues we were given. I think we just ended up getting here before the bad guys. I say we let the people in charge of the museum know, and we can dress up as civilians during the day and cleaning crew at night. We can make sure no one else gets hurt, at least no one innocent, and then maybe we can catch the bad guys or put them down." Tasha's stoic face looks to the rest of the group before landing on Kurt, who seems to be trying to work through some mental hurdles.

"Look, while I agree that we should do the stake out, I don't think we should go guns blazing. I think we should try to capture the group so they can be brought to justice properly, not be judge, jury, and executioner. If we get into a corner and can't help but defend ourselves, then that's different, but I think we need to try very hard to at least keep one alive. We need to be able to confirm it isn't a copycat group, and that they are responsible for all the hits."

"Ok, Mr. Noble." Tasha says with a roll of her eyes. "I am fine with not killing them on sight, but they've already killed multiple times before. I just want to make sure we're packing so that we are ready. We can wear some Kevlar underneath our outfits just in case. I agree that it would be beneficial to at least have one to interrogate afterwards."

Rich perks up at the thought of Kevlar, especially since his character is very low in the protection department. "Wait, is Kevlar a thing we can have, oh great and powerful Patterson?"

"Sure, why not. We can say that everyone gets a plus one to their Armor Class. It should be listed as 'AC' on your character sheet. This is what I will have to roll in order for someone to hit you. So an additional one to your AC will mean it will be harder for the bad guys to hit you, if you were to get into combat that is." Patterson quickly writes down a few notes on the other side of her screen that the group cannot see behind. "For simplicity sake, I've already written down your armor classes behind my Dungeon Master screen in case it is needed, so I will be able to let you know if they hit or not immediately."

"Sweet! I will take all the help I can get. I only have a thirteen armor class, so I'm quite squishy at the moment." Rich crosses his arms over his chest and puts his hands on his biceps, shrugging his shoulders up as if he was suddenly frail.

"Ok, now that that's settled. Are we ready to go through with Zapata's plan or is there anything else we should do first?" Jane starts to write out the few steps of the plan Tasha had proposed just moments before, wanting to make sure they are all on the same page before proceeding.

"I think Tasha had a good plan, and I agree with both her and Kurt that we should try to take them alive, and if things go haywire, at the very least try to keep one alive." Reade nods and continues on, "So first thing's first. We have the Kevlar on, let's get into plain clothes and figure out what sort of shifts we will be setting up and where we will be standing."

"On that note…" Patterson jumps up and runs into the bedroom once again. Once she gets into the bedroom, she crouches down on the floor next to the bed and lifts the bedskirt, reaching for the map she had made previously for this very occasion. Once she has it in tow she proudly walks out with it, with a bounce in her step. "Here you guys go!"

"Oh. My. Gah." Rich stands up from his seat wide eyed at the perfect map Patterson had setup. It looks like she had made it out of foam, but had painted it and everything to give extra dimension to the space. She had even included a small plastic Mask in a clear case as well as a few of the other columns and artifacts that were around. "How in the hell did you do this? More importantly how did I not know you were making maps? Hey, isn't this some of our stuff from the lab?"

Patterson looks over at Reade quickly before replying, "Uh, that may look like stuff from work, but that is most definitely not anything from our lab. At all. None of it. Nope."

"Smooth, babe." Tasha says with a chuckle.

"It's fine, you say it's not from work, it's not from work. It's not like you have a track record for taking office supplies like some people." Reade says as he turns to glare at Rich, who immediately turns around as if there is someone behind him he is looking for. "Anyways, Patterson, this is amazing. You've really outdone yourself. This will make it so much easier to plan."

The group spends the next fifteen minutes or so planning how they will have their shifts and rotations around the museum so they are as inconspicuous as possible. They decide that their characters will be paired off into what could be conceivable couples on vacation; Kurt and Jane, Reade and Zapata, and Rich would be covering from the video surveillance room at the museum. After the museum closed, if the culprits still had not showed up, the plan would be to change into janitor outfits and take their time cleaning every inch of the museum while still keeping The Mask within line of sight. They also made sure to mention they had their comms on, so that they would be able to quickly relay information back and forth.

After the group quieted down, Patterson took her cue and began speaking again, "You guys start making your rounds. Looking at all the old artifacts, but trying to maintain sight lines on the mask is easy enough to do. You make sure that at all times at least one of your groups have visual contact, and Rich is making sure to always have the monitor for The Mask brought up in the surveillance room. As the day passes you see a few more groups of children from various schools come in to take in the sights. You see other tourists fully decked out with fanny packs and cameras taking photos wherever they are permitted. As the day starts to grow longer, you start seeing the groups of people thin out. It's getting more and more sparse and before too long, it's end of the day and time for the museum to close."

"Let's hope we got this right. They never actually mentioned when they would hit, but it seems like they have been ramping up their attacks." Rich bites a hangnail off his forefinger as he sits in anticipation.

"As night rolls around, you guys leave your Kevlar on but change out into Janitor's clothing and start wheeling your mop and bucket around. A couple of you are dusting and doing other clean up duties as well." Patterson pauses for a few seconds before continuing, "It starts to get towards midnight, and all you can hear is the wheels squeaking on your carts as they are pushed, and the occasional footfall on the freshly shined floors. Being the only people in here, every single sound seems to echo, sounding bigger and more menacing than it should be. Right as the clock strikes midnight, you guys start hearing some new noises. There's a scratching sound coming from the back of the room you are in." At this, Patterson reveals a portion of the map she had covered up in paper. It shows a door built into the wall near the backside of her map. She points to the door and informs the group, "The noise you hear seems to be coming from this door. From your earlier walkthroughs, you know this door leads into a worker only staging area for the artifacts, that also has a door to the back alley."

"Do we all hear this scratching noise?" Reade asks as he starts to lean towards the table to get a better look at the logistics of the map.

"Yes, you all definitely hear it. Even though the scratches are light sounds themselves, you're in this cavern of a room that seems to amplify any sound that is made." Patterson makes sure to add some extra weight to that last part of her statement, hoping that they pick up on the cue that they will need to be extra quiet with whatever they decide to do next, or risk scaring off the criminals.

"Can I see them on the video monitors? If I can I would like to see how many and what they are wearing." Rich looks down to see he has a trickle of blood coming out of his fingertip, he quickly wipes it off on his jeans and picks up his d20 to start rolling it around in his hand instead.

"Sure, on the monitor you see four figures dressed in what appears to be ancient Egyptian garments. It appears that three are male, and one you think is female. One is dressed up as Nefertiti, but you are pretty sure that it is a guy underneath it all since he keeps adjusting himself. The second person you see, the one who is picking the lock, seems to be built smaller than the others and is bare chested from the waist up, wearing a similar mask on his head to the one that you are trying to prevent the theft of. The next person you recognize is a woman who is dressed up as Cleopatra, and on her arm is a man who you cannot make out due to the lighting of the video. You see that he has short wavy hair, but aside from that, you cannot see what he is wearing other than it maybe being a whiter linen than the other figures." As Patterson explains what they see, she sets down a miniature for each person by the door.

"I would like to talk into the comms and say, _'Hey guys, do not freak out but we have some bad guys, and girl, coming in. Keep quiet and take up your spots, they are coming in the back door. Three are male, one female. They seemed to be dressed as Egyptians for the most part'_ and then I would like to watch the monitors to make sure no one else shows up, and make sure that no one sneaks out either." Rich pauses for a moment before adding, "Just out of curiosity, can I tell that these are the same people from the other heists?"

"Roll a Perception check for me, Rich." Patterson had wondered how long it would take for someone to check to see if it was the same people they saw time and again.

"That is a fifteen total."

"You seem to recall that the last group was also three males and one female, but you would have to look at the photos and videos side by side to really see if they are the same exact people at all the crime scenes." After no response from Rich, Patterson continues on, "So they are at the door unlocking it as we speak. What do you do?"

Kurt starts to lay out their game plan, "Let's sneak around and get a good vantage point on them from the sides. We can still act like we are janitors cleaning for the time being. Tasha, you should go through the back and cut off their exit route."

"Anyone who is trying to be sneaky, roll a Stealth check. Anyone who is just trying to be a janitor, feel free to move your miniature on the map to wherever you would like to be." Patterson sets down a miniature for each person in front of the map. After everyone has placed themselves where they want, Patterson turns to Tasha to see what she rolled.

"I rolled a twenty-five stealth check. You can't even see me, bitches!" Tasha waves a stretched out hand in front of her face like a magician would during a magic trick.

"That's definitely a good roll. Anyone else stealthing?" Patterson is greeted with shaking heads as she looks to everyone else. "Ok, everyone roll Initiative. This will let me know what order everyone will be taking their turns in."

After receiving the numbers for everyone, Patterson quickly writes down the order off to the side of her stack of papers behind the screen. Tasha goes on twenty, the bad guys on eighteen, Jane will be going on fifteen, Reade on thirteen, Kurt on ten, and Rich on five.

"Ok, ok, ok. Before we get into combat here, I just want to point out that," Patterson turns to stare Rich directly in the eyes, "I have engineered this combat system to be a little more user friendly for beginners. We already went over your different classes that each of you are, but instead of worrying about different types of weapons you have and what to roll accordingly, we are going to just roll one d20 die to see if you hit. Each bad guy will take 3 hits before they are unconscious and dying. Same goes for you guys."

Rich places a hand over his heart and gasps before continuing in a Southern accent, "Why, Miss Patterson, I do declare that your staring was completely unfounded and unnecessary. You think I would complain about the combat system not being what is in the bonafide rulebook? Bless your heart."

"Uh huh, right, you never complain about anything. What was I thinking?" Patterson chuckles as she rolls her eyes and looks over to the rest of the group. "I just wanted you guys to know that it is different than what we would normally do in D&D, but I think this will be fun regardless. For our game I wanted it to be more about the story than the mechanics."

"I'm cool with this, the simpler the better… Especially for Reade." Tasha grins winks across the table at Reade.

"Yeah, yeah, poke fun all you want, but I feel like I'm getting the hang of this! I do agree though, that the 3 hit system of having a combat scenario may be better than what it sounds like the rulebook lays out. At least until we get our feet under us."

"Definitely. Maybe if we all like this well enough we can try a 'real' game of Dungeons and Dragons with all the mechanics how they are supposed to be." Jane smiles as Patterson's whole face lights up at the mention of the group maybe playing a more traditional game.

"I'm totally down for that if you guys are! Nothing would make me happier!" Patterson looks over to Tasha, who has an eyebrow raised. "Ok, maybe not _nothing_ , but I would be very, very happy to run a standard campaign setting if everyone was wanting to give it a try."

After some chatter around the table about the possible future endeavors, Patterson corrals everyone back to the topic at hand, to the combat that is about to take place.

 _To Be Continued..._


	6. Chapter 6: Exhibit of Mayhem

Exhibit of Mayhem

Patterson starts in as soon as everyone has quieted down, "Alright, are you all where you want to be? Tasha just be mindful that it will probably take your whole turn to loop around to the back door, so it will take everything you have just to get there."

"Yeah, that's fine. I still want to do that. I think it would be wise to make sure no one is able to turn chicken and escape once they see how powerful we are." Tasha grins at the thought of the shocked looks on the criminals' faces when they figure out that the janitors at this heist won't be such easy prey.

Patterson nods and rubs her hands together excitedly, "Then let's begin! First up is you Tasha."

As Patterson trails off, Tasha leans up onto her table with all of her weight on one arm, so she can stretch out her other to point to where she would like to go. "If I can make it there, I would like to be on the other side of the doorway to that back room. Since you said I can't do anything else this turn, I want to make sure they don't see me until we can get a jump on them."

"Fair enough." Patterson rolls her die behind the screen four times, to the dismay of everyone in the group besides Rich.

"Hey, what are you doing over there?" Reade's eyes widen as he looks around to his friends, who all have the same look, except for Rich who has a sly grin on his face. "Do you know something we don't?"

"She is just rolling to see if they see Tasha, which admittedly would be very, very bad if they do."

Patterson shrugs at this, "You don't know for sure what I'm rolling for." As she says this she mentally reminds herself to screw with Rich later on, since he seems to be too at ease with what she has done so far. After a brief pause she picks back up where she left off, "Ok, it's now the bad guys' turn. They have unlocked the door and it starts to swing open. They will file out like so," Patterson reaches over to put all four of their miniatures coming around the right-hand pillar towards where The Mask is stationed. Once again, she rolls four more times, mentally adding the values for their own Perception checks. "As the group come out, they are in a somewhat 'V' pattern, with King Tut at the fulcrum. He turns back to a man dressed in what looks more like a toga and points off to the right at you Reade, he then turns to Cleopatra and points down the far left to Jane, and Nefertiti is pointed towards the left at Kurt. After they get their orders you watch as each of the goons head off in the direction of their assignments, as they approach, you notice that their slow and steady gait exudes confidence. They are not worried about pesky janitors." Patterson places the toga miniature, Nefertiti, and Cleopatra in their places in front of their marks, but leaving two squares of space in between, which would amount to be about 10 feet away. King Tut ends up being placed about halfway towards The Mask. "Jane, you're up."

"Well we don't want to kill them out right, so I will just play up the part of a janitor and wait for them to make their move." After a moment's contemplation, she continues as her character with a slurred speech pattern, _"Hey! You - you aren't supposed to be in here. The museum is closed, and I don't think I've drank enough to see the exhibits come to life."_ Jane also throws in a couple of hiccups for good measure.

Patterson chuckles at the antics and adds, "Go ahead and roll a Deception check, but with advantage. That means you roll your d20 die twice and take the higher of the two rolls, then add your Deception modifier."

Jane rolls twice, but shakes her head. "Even with that I only got a sixteen."

Patterson rolls once behind the screen, but ends up with a fourteen total for Cleopatra. She writes this down since it will affect how Cleopatra acts on her next turn. "Ok, if you don't want to do anything else or move anywhere, Reade it's your turn."

After no interjection from Jane, Reade continues with his plan. "I'm going to lean on my broom and tell the guy in front of me, _'Look man, I just clean their floors. Whatever you're going to do, I'm not going to stop you. Just don't make a mess.'_ After that I'm going to stay put, but ready to act if I need to."

Reade and Patterson make opposing rolls for another Deception check, Reade had rolled a twelve, she pens down a ten next to the fourteen from before. "Ok, so that leads us to Kurt."

"Which one is in front of me again?"

"The guy who is trying to be Nefertiti. Up close you see that it is very unsettling, because even as he walks closer to you, he is still adjusting himself. You get the feeling that he hates this getup almost as much as you hate watching it." Patterson snickers at the mental image she has of this interaction, which is only made more vivid by Kurt's revulsion to her words.

"Alright, enough of that, I will say, _'You might want to get that checked out. We have all sorts of cleaning supplies, but none will be able to help you down there, buddy.'_ Then I will place my broom down on my cart and set my hands on it leaning a bit. But I want to make sure I place my right hand near where I stashed one of my side arms."

Patterson rolls one of her dice and without any change in facial feature just lets out a "hmm" noise. After a lengthy pause, she continues, "Rich, your turn."

Rich raises an eyebrow at Patterson, not knowing exactly what she rolled for, but he does not think it would be wise to poke the bear with questions. "I'm going to continue manning the cameras right now. Has anything changed that I can see?"

"Nope, everything appears to be how you saw it previously. The one change is now you can see Tasha on the video feed, sidled up against the other side of the doorway to the back room." Patterson shrugs and keeps a straight face, she knew Rich was wanting to pick up on any kind of clues she accidentally let slip in her countenance, so she was being very careful about her facial expressions.

Rich starts to squint his eyes a little bit, trying to see through a possible trick from Patterson. "Oookay, I'll just let Tasha know they have moved out into the main room and their locations relative to everyone else."

"Ok, you do so. Tasha you're back up."

"Alright, I want to come out of my hiding place and come through the back room to the doorway they just went through. I would like to stay in the shadows if possible and get a line of sight on King Tut." Tasha leans over the table to see that there is just barely line of sight if she stands towards the right side of the door.

"Go ahead and roll another Stealth check for me, since you're very close to a couple of them now."

"Shit! I rolled a two. So that would make my Stealth check an eight total." Tasha puts her head in her hands. She knows that this is not going to go well for her character. Even though Patterson is the Dungeon Master of this game, she most definitely would not take it easy on her just because of their relationship.

Patterson rolls a couple times for the criminals that are closest to the doorway, unfortunately for Tasha, they both rolled higher than an eight. She sucks in a breath through her teeth, "Yikes. Ok, here's what happens. Tasha you think you are totally being the sneakiest person alive, unfortunately you were not watching where you were going. As you start to take position in the doorway, you don't see the metal crowbar leaning there, left behind from opening up the artifact's crates. As you step forward, your foot catches the bottom of it and it clatters to the floor, piercing the silence that had been there moments before. The two closest to the door, Nefertiti and the toga wearing man, both look over their shoulders immediately at the doorway. What would you like to do?"

"Fuck's sake." Thinking back on their planning session Tasha remembers she needs to give the code word for when something has gone wrong, "I quietly say into my comms _'Jenga!'_ and I want to pick up the crowbar while staying beside the door as long as they don't have direct line of sight on me."

"Ok, you don't think they do, but you aren't sure." Patterson places Zapata's miniature against the doorway as hidden as possible. "It's now their turn. Cleopatra gives you, Jane, a side eye as she sees her friends turn toward the doorway they came from. She walks up to you muttering, _'Stupid drunkard, you probably only had one beer before a lightweight like you is sloshed.'_ Cleopatra then takes out a length of rope that was strapped to her hip and attempts to tie your wrists up. Do you try to resist?"

Jane nervously looks around for visual cues from her friends on which way to proceed. Upon receiving a lot of shrugs and Rich's emphatic head shaking she decided against her better judgement, "No. We still have the ruse going on. I'll just make it a little more difficult by swaying on my feet and act like I might puke."

Patterson laughs as she responds, "She struggles to keep you upright while tying your bonds. She sees that you're about to hurl, so she just does a quick one knot binding and sits you down, telling you to stay put, before quickly walking away saying _'There may be extra clean up duties needed in the morning.'_ As she walks back towards Nefertiti, she sees him point at the doorway and put his finger to his lips. Cleopatra nods and starts to veer off towards the doorway as if everything was fine. The guy impersonating Nefertiti, exchanges glances with the man in the toga outfit next. After a single head nod, the man in the toga starts to approach you, Reade, attempting to bind your hands. Kurt, for you, Nefertiti steps forward and tries to punch you for the quip about his junk. Reade do you try to resist?" As Patterson asks the question she goes ahead and rolls a die to see if Kurt gets hit or not.

"I'll just put my hands up and start backing up away from him. I want to try to pull him away from his friends a bit more and maybe to a point where I can dart behind something for cover." Reade stands up to look at the two-dimensional map that Patterson had crafted. "Maybe if I can get over here by this other statue that I can duck behind if the situation calls for it."

"I'll allow it, since last round you had kind of held your action to be ready to act." Patterson moves Reade's miniature so that it is parallel to a statue about twenty feet away from his current position. "Kurt, he rolled a total of twenty, so he punches you in the nose. You think it might be broken, and you take one point of damage. As he grabs one of your arms to move it behind you, he says _'You only wish you had what I'm packing.'_ He then also attempts to then bind your hands. Do you resist?

"I want to wait for him to get closer and then, yes, I would like to resist by trying to headbutt him. Right before I do it, I want to say _'Sorry, I don't like things that ooze.'"_

After Patterson gets her laughter under control, she continues on with the story. "Nice! Ok, let's roll for it. For this, I will let you roll either your Athletics to overpower him, or your Acrobatics to out maneuver him." She goes ahead and rolls for Nefertiti, who only gets a nine.

"I want to do Athletics because it gives me a higher number, which would turn out to be eighteen total."

"As he starts to step around you, and you say that, it catches him off guard. He lets go of your hand to try and rear back to hit you again, but right when he lets go, you quickly turn and headbutt him in the nose. Now both of your noses are streaming blood. He also takes a point of damage. You each would have two more 'hits' until you are unconscious."

"What?! From a punch to the nose and a headbutt?" Rich does not try to hide his surprise at the turn of events. "How is that the same as getting shot?"

"Think of them as wounds if it helps. Three wounds, and you're unconscious. Both Kurt and Nefertiti now have one wound. Like I mentioned before combat started, I'm going to do a more simplistic combat setup for this campaign."

"Fine, but we still have all of our gear, right? The healing vials and The Big Red Button?" Rich checks back to make sure that's all they were given.

"Yes, you still have those. With this combat system, we will say that the healing vials heal two hits, or wounds, out of the three. It will also be able to bring someone back to consciousness, still healing the same amount of two."

Rich emulates a monk from one of his favorite movies, "First thou shalt take out the cork of the vial. Two shall be the number of healing. No more, no less. Three thou shalt not count on, nor one, excepting that thou then proceeded to two." Both Rich and Patterson start bursting into a hearty laugh, they both knew this movie by heart, and while the numbers were adjusted slightly, the hilarity was still present.

Wiping away tears of laughter, Patterson continues on, "Oh man, that was good. Props for that. Ok, so, back into the encounter. Kurt, both you and Nefertiti are at a standoff, the man in the toga has stopped his progress towards Reade and has turned towards you instead. King Tut, who had made it almost to The Mask at this point, also turns around and snarls at his companions, _'You bunch of wankers, we were sent on this job to do one thing. Get The Mask of Tutankhamun and get out. Stop fucking it up, just tie them up, knock them out, or kill them if you have to.'_ He then turns back to the case holding The Mask trying to get it off without setting off the alarm. That will be the end of their turn, so Jane you're up. Currently you are tied up and off to the far left of the map near the wall."

"Hm, alright. I think I'm going to try to inconspicuously get this knot untied but hold the rope in place. If I do, then I want to stand up with it still appearing like it is knotted and stumble forwards towards Cleopatra, who had walked away from me, and try to get as close to her as possible."

"Ok, go ahead and roll an acrobatics check to see if you can get it untied, and we will go from there."

Jane rolls her die and immediately jumps up from her chair with both hands straight up in the air yelling "Natural twenty!" at the top of her lungs. After a moment she looks down to her character sheet and says, "that would be a total of twenty-six." She receives high fives and fist bumps from her friends, as well as a kiss on the cheek from Kurt.

Patterson sits back down after giving Jane a high five. "Damn! I will say with that roll it happens exactly how you laid it out. Do you say anything to Cleopatra as you approach?"

"As I walk up to her, I'll say _'It's lonely over there, can you at least let me grab my flask so I have something to do?'_ and I want to be walking like a drunk as well."

Patterson moves Jane's miniature closer to Cleopatra, which ends up being a couple spaces away from each other, before turning to Reade letting him know it is his turn to go.

"Well after hearing 'Jenga' from Tasha earlier, and the headbutt from Kurt, as well as Jane starting to take position…" Reade trails off as he thinks about his options. "I think I'm going to just walk forward closing the gap between toga guy and me and quickly try to pin his arms down behind his back by grappling him. If possible, I want to keep him between myself and King Tut."

"Ok roll an Athletics check, I will say the toga-man will have disadvantage since it took him by surprise, considering he was convinced you were a janitor." Patterson rolls twice and takes the lower of her two rolls and adds the strength modifier for her criminal.

"That's not great, I got a thirteen total. I rolled really low," Reade says with dismay.

"Well you did better than Mr. Toga. He only got a twelve, so you just barely succeed. You now have him grappled and I'll say you were able to reposition yourselves so that he is in between you and Tut. Anything else you would like to do?"

Reade, unsure if that was a hint from Patterson if there was something else he was supposed to do, contemplates for a minute before saying, "Is it possible for me to put my handcuffs on him this turn as well?"

"Normally I would make that another action, but I think in this scenario since you already have his arms behind his back I'll let you do that as a bonus action to slap the cuffs on." After a moment's pause and seeing Reade nod in affirmation, Patterson continues, "Ok, the guy in the toga is now handcuffed. Kurt it is your turn now."

"I want to turn and try to do the same. I grab one of Nefertiti's wrists, turn it, and try to haul him down as I get his arms behind his back to cuff him."

"This time it will be a straight Athletics roll. After seeing his companion go down, you get the feeling that they may realize you guys are no simple janitors anymore."

"That shouldn't be a problem, that's an eighteen total." Kurt says proudly with a huge grin.

"Unfortunately, that wasn't enough." Patterson gives Kurt a small sad smile before letting him know what happened. "Nefertiti is a big, strong, guy whose wrist is now covered in blood from trying to stop his nosebleed. You attempt to lunge for his wrist and move it behind him, but your hand just slips right off and leaving you a little unbalanced. I would say it would take the rest of your turn to catch yourself and you can turn back to your mark if you would like."

"Damn it! Yes, I want to turn back to this guy, but I want to stay low in a wrestler's stance in case he comes after me."

"No problem, we will say you're crouching at the ready for what he does next. Rich, what are you doing?"

"Remind me again, where is this surveillance room located in regards to the big room they are in?" Rich leans forward on the table so that he can get a good survey of the room his friends are in.

"I would say you are on the upper level off to the right. If you were to walk out of the room you would see over a railing, looking down at the room where your friends are. The Mask of Tutankhamun is almost directly below the bannister you would be looking out over. You are probably about twenty feet up from the floor everyone is standing on."

"Ok, if that's the case, I would like to cast the Charm Person spell on King Tut. I think he should just barely be within range, he would need to be within 30 feet of me."

Patterson calculates where King Tut is standing in relation to Rich upstairs, "Yup, you just barely are able to do so. I would say due to the angle he is just at the 30 feet mark. So he is going to roll his Wisdom save, and is going to try to beat your fourteen." Patterson rolls the d20 die and adds up the numbers but comes up just short with a twelve. She sighs, "He's charmed. You watch before you as King Tut, who is tinkering away at this display case, suddenly lets loose the tension he was holding in his shoulders. Instead of continuing to work, he sets his tools down and looks up to you with a smile and a wave as if he just saw one of his friends."

Rich turns to the rest of the group, "Ok guys, game terms, do not hit or harm King Tut or this all goes kablooey." Rich then turns back to Patterson and begins talking in his character's voice _"Hey, King, you don't want to be stealing that. It's cursed. Tell your friends to stand down too before they get hurt."_

"You think you see a slight nod from King Tut, while his other companions all have a confused look on their face. They seem to be wondering who you are and why it seems like their friend knows you. Is that it for your turn, Rich?"

"The last thing I want to do is say in the comms to Tasha to stand down and guard the back door. We still may need someone to make sure they can't escape."

"Ok, Tasha, it is now your turn. What would you like to do?" Patterson asks.

"Well I don't normally listen to Rich, but I guess this time I will. I want to be ready to attack anyone who is going to run through the doorway. I'll just whisper into the comms 'Copy' and stay put."

"Alright, criminals turn. You see that the confusion on their faces has not left. Nefertiti glances over in the way of King Tut asking, 'Boss?' while crouching down in a stance similar to yours Kurt. Cleopatra has also completely dismissed the drunkard who doesn't seem to be imposing any danger and starts to walk towards King Tut, _'Charlie, what's going on? We need to get The Mask and get out of here, now!'_ You watch as King Tut slowly stands up and turns around to his friends, and points a finger up towards Rich standing above him _'We need to listen to him. This treasure is cursed, and we don't want to have any part of that. Just do what I say and stand down.'_ After which you see King Tut sit down with his legs crisscrossed waiting patiently. Cleopatra looks between Rich and King Tut, but the apparent boss being Charlie, she sits down beside him with a huff. The man in the toga, who is currently handcuffed, takes off towards the back door. Running his full sprint, he is going to attempt to go through the doorway and out into the streets. Tasha, you get an action here go ahead and make an attack roll."

"As he's running past I just want to trip him up so he faceplants." Tasha then rolls her die and gets a seventeen.

"That is just barely enough, you trip him up and he goes flying into an open artifact crate. You watch as he struggles to try and get out of it by arching his back, all while his legs are bent at the knees hanging over the edge of the crate, kicking trying to get some momentum." The group laughs as they all picture the bad guy kicking and rocking back and forth trying to get out, like a magician learning a new trick with a straight jacket. "Nefertiti begrudgingly puts his hands up and looking over at his boss, walks to them and sits down next to them as well. You can feel the rage emanating off of him, the anger is almost palpable."

"Are we out of initiative order now?" Rich questions Patterson.

"Yes, I would say for the time being you are. What would everyone like to do?"

"We need to bind their hands. My spell will only last an hour, so we are on a time crunch to find out all the information we can from the group. I'm going to make my way down to the floor they are on so we can all be there. We should bring in Mr. Clumsy as well."

"Hey, my character is a girl!" Tasha interjects as she points a deadly finger at Rich.

"I said MISTER clumsy on purpose, as in the criminal who Wile E. Coyote'd his way into a box." Rich rolls his eyes at Tasha, "If I was going to call you anything, it would have been Ms. Clutz."

"Ok, ok." Patterson says in placating manner. "So, you guys do so. You get all four of them bound and sitting next to each other on the floor. What would you like to ask them?" Patterson checks the clock on the wall to see what time it is, it is half past midnight, which means it may be time to start wrapping things up.

The group immediately starts talking over one another, all interrupting what someone else is saying. They all have different ideas on what techniques they should use to get information, what questions to ask, and what information are they truly needing for their quest. After about five minutes of non-stop chatter progressively getting louder and louder, the cacophony of sound gets to be too much for Patterson, so she gets out her Titanium die and starts rolling it, waiting about thirty seconds in between rolls. After the second one, Rich hears it and immediately panics. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! She's rolling! What are you rolling for?! What's happening?"

"You will just have to wait until next week to find out." Patterson says with a sly smirk. "Tonight's session is now over."

"What?! We can't end there. You expect me to not know what's happening for a whole week?!" Rich exclaims as he stands up from the table. "I will bug you every single day, every single time I have any free time, until you tell me what is happening. Do you want that? Because I don't think you do." He crosses his arms in front of him staring at Patterson.

Patterson tosses Rich a candy bar with a chuckle before saying, "Here, take this. It's dangerous to go postal on your Dungeon Master." She pauses for a moment, sucking in a deep breath adding, "It's late, and everything is devolving into conflict. Take the week to figure out what you think your characters would ask the group of criminals and we will pick up where we left off next time."

Reluctantly the group all agreed to call it a night and apologized to each other for talking over everyone. After Patterson called them out on how they were acting, it was very apparent that they all needed some rest. They say their goodbyes to Patterson and Zapata at the door and retire to their own homes until the next game night.


	7. Chapter 7: Knock Knock

Knock Knock

Tasha walks into their apartment, just getting back from the grocery store, lugging all twelve bags in one trip. "Hey, babe, do you think you could lend me a hand?" After no response, Tasha looks around to find Patterson standing at the sink, mindlessly washing the dishes before everyone arrives for their next game night. "Babe?" Still no response. "Hellooooo?" After a few more tries Tasha gets a little frustrated and grabs a towel off the counter, snapping it against Patterson's behind.

"OW! What the fuck?!" Patterson screams as she hurls around with a knife in her hand, prepared to attack her unknown foe.

Zapata quickly jumps back with her hands up in the air. "Woah there, easy girl, put the knife down. It's just me."

Patterson's eyes widen in realization, pointing the knife down, she says loudly. "Why didn't you tell me you were here?! You scared the crap out of me! I could have killed you!"

"I did, but you didn't respond?" Tasha replies with a confused look on her face.

"What?!" Patterson once again says in a loud voice.

Tasha yells back, "I SAID I DID, BUT YOU DID NOT HEAR ME!" She quietly adds, "What did you do, age sixty years while I was gone?"

"Oh! Wait!" Patterson thunders, deftly removing the earplugs she had forgotten to take out when she got home. It had been a very long week at the office; true to his word, Rich harassed her every second he could to try and figure out what she was rolling for at the end of the last game session. Her final solution was to put in earplugs so she could actually get her work done, they were trying to save lives after all, and she needed to be able to focus.

"Guess that means I'm back to the drawing board for Christmas gift ideas." Tasha says as she mimes crossing a word off a list, "Hearing aids, you are the weakest link, goodbye."

"Funny. I really could have killed you though! You're lucky I didn't just go in swinging."

Patterson's worried look hits home, but Tasha can't help herself. Before she knows it, she's retorting, "Please. One, you couldn't land a hit on me. Two, your hands were wet and soapy, and so was the knife. The likelihood you could even hold onto it for a killing blow is unlikely. And finally, you would never hurt me, and I would never hurt you. You don't hurt the people you love." As Tasha finishes she walks closer to Patterson, towel still in hand, and starts to slowly wipe off her wet and soapy fingers. "How long until everyone is supposed to be here for game night?"

Patterson feels her face heat up as a blush stretches from her cheeks all the way down her neck. She stutters as her heartbeat races, stepping closer so that she closes the distance to her girlfriend "I… I'm not sure. What did you have in mind?"

Tasha smoothly envelops Patterson's lips in hers, lightly caressing her chin with one hand, and pulling her closer by the waist with her other. They stand there, lost in each other's arms for a solid minute before there is a loud knock on the door. Tasha groans loudly in frustration. "Damn it. I guess next time we will have to be quicker, and maybe forego the foreplay." She gives Patterson a cheeky grin as they both try to catch their breath.

"Why don't we just table this until after game night is over? Then we can explore all of our options as we wish." Patterson says with a smirk and a wink before walking over to the door to see who had arrived for their next session.

As soon as the door opens, Rich can be seen on the other side bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. He quickly squirms his way through the small gap between Kurt and Jane so he can get inside and start setting up immediately. "Excuse me, pardon me, beep beep. We are finally going to find out what Patterson was rolling for, and my body is ready."

Kurt and Jane exchanged exasperated looks before rolling their eyes and following him in, greeting Tasha and Patterson on their way to the table. Reade steps in behind them as well, carrying the snacks for the night, and heads to the kitchen to lay out the spread. On his way there his shoe slides and he almost loses his balance. Looking down at the kitchen floor he sees that near the sink there is a sizeable puddle of dormant water. "Do you guys have a leak or something?"

"Oh didn't you get the memo? I thought instead of just having death traps in the game I would make it more 'real' by bringing it into reality. You forgot to roll to check for traps before you came in." Patterson quips with a smile as she goes to grab a towel.

Tasha turns to Reade and says nonchalantly, "She attempted to kill me earlier when she was washing dishes. Don't worry though, those roguish skills aren't just in the game for me. I was able to easily get out of range of her knife wielding."

Reade, Jane, and Kurt all exchange worried glances as they look between Patterson and Zapata. Catching the nervous looks, Patterson pipes up, "It's not like that guys. Rich was hounding me all week so I had to resort to using earplugs. I forgot to take them out when I got home, and Tasha scared me since I couldn't hear that she was here. There may or may not have been a threat of physical harm, but we got it all sorted out and everything is fine. It was just a misunderstanding."

Everyone immediately relaxes a little after hearing the explanation, except for Rich who seemed to get more animated. "I warned you last session that I was going to ask you repeatedly about those die rolls if you did not tell us what they were for. I gave you knowledge of what was going to happen, and you ignored it. That's not my fault. You know I don't like not knowing things." Rich crosses his arms and after a moment's contemplation quickly adds, "Though now that we are all here, I don't see why we are still standing around clucking like a bunch of hens. Let's get into the game so we can finally hear what Patterson rolled for last time."

Everyone finished getting their drinks and snacks ready then headed over to the table. They were in no hurry, but made sure they were all sitting down and ready to start before Rich got even more impatient.

"Alright, where we last left off, you had encountered the group of criminals and pacified who you believe to be their leader. Currently he is under the Charm Person spell for an hour. Under that spell, he took your advice and was able to get everyone to come over by him so you could handcuff them for interrogation, instead of getting cursed by The Mask of Tutankhamun. As they were sitting there, you guys were discussing, out of character, what to ask them etcetera. That is where we pick up for tonight." Patterson sits back in her chair and waits for them to start in on the interrogation.

With a furrowed brow, Rich looks over to Patterson, "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Hmm, nope. I don't believe so."

"What about the rolls. The ROLLS!" Rich exclaims, getting agitated that he still hasn't been able to scratch the itch of not knowing something for a whole week, again.

"Oh, those rolls." Patterson says with a sly smile and a shrug of her shoulders. "Yeah, they were nothing. I just needed you guys to start quieting down last game so we could wrap up."

"Wait. You're telling me… they meant nothing?" Rich's face starts to contort in anger and annoyance. "All week I was worried about another set of criminals, or a trap, or something we did not foresee; and now you're saying it was all just to get us to stop fighting? Why didn't you just say so this week? Put me out of my misery? I got more gray hairs thanks to you!" Rich emphatically points at a couple hairs on his head to drive his point home.

"I did consider it, but then I started thinking about all the times you called me Pat Pat or Patty Cakes or any of the other names you know annoy me, and thought this might be a good way for you to reap what you sow. Plus, it helped put the pressure on you guys to figure out your interrogation before something else happened. You guys will need to be concise since you're trying to beat the clock of the spell you have over King Tut." Patterson nods sagely as she says this, hoping that the group takes the hint. For emphasis, she stands up to grab the hourglass off one of their bookshelves and sets it down on the table, flipping it over. "Your time has begun. When this sand runs out, we will say the Charm Person spell expires."

Rich drops the 'woe is me' act immediately. He knows that as soon as that spell ends, they will be hard pressed to actually get any quality information out of the criminals. By the spells description, when it ends, the person you charmed knows that they were charmed and manipulated by you - which usually makes them very untrusting of anything else coming out of your mouth. He looks back to the group text thread that he, Kurt, Jane, Reade, and Zapata had created this past week to talk about what questions to ask, and in what order. The most important question they could come up with was, _"Who do you work for?_ "

Patterson imitates King Tut's British accent once again, _"I never said we work for anyone."_

Rich cocks an eyebrow at this before replying, _"You let it slip earlier that you were sent on this job to steal The Mask of Tutankhamun. If this was your own idea, you would not have said you were 'sent' to do this. So, I'm going to ask again, who are you working for?"_

Patterson takes a steadying deep breath, knowing this may be difficult to roleplay since she will be speaking as multiple characters at once, to each other no less. "As you ask this, you see King Tut start to grin. Nefertiti, Cleopatra, and the man in the toga all look worriedly over to their boss who seems, to them, to be cracking under pressure. _'Boss, you know the rules. We can't say anything or we're dead.'_ Nefertiti tries to drive his point home, by nudging King Tut's comparatively smaller shoulder until he looks him in the eye. _'Do you hear me?'_ You all watch as King Tut slowly turns to Nefertiti, a small laugh bubbling up, _'Don't you get it? The boss set us up. These people were the ones to warn us that The Mask was cursed. Why were we not forewarned about that?'_ Nefertiti continues on, and you get the feeling he may be second in command in this group, _'How do you know THEY told the truth?'_ King Tut laughs at this, _'Because they are our friends! They would not lie to us!'_ His three other companions all exchange worried glances, as they have never seen nor heard about any of you before. Before they can get a better grasp on their predicament, King Tut speaks up once again, _'We do not know the name of who hired us, everything was done over the internet. We mainly post on a message board with coded messages, and have only ever talked to one other bloke. This bloke was the one who got us the in, made sure we knew how to make contact to get our marks, and the one who made sure we understood the rules of our contract. Even he did not give us his name, just his card.'_ King Tut nods down to his pants pocket, encouraging you to take something out of it."

After a lengthy pause, Rich looks around to the rest of the group who are all nodding at him and moving their hands in a 'get on with it' motion. With a sigh Rich speaks up, "Ugh, fine, I check his pocket to see if he has a card in there."

"You are able to find the card easily. You look it over to see that it is just a plain business card with very little text." Patterson stands up to get the card she made out of her back pocket, and hands it to Rich.

Looking the card over, it did indeed look like a normal business card. It was very sparse, only having a metallic looking monogrammed 'V' inside of a circle centered on one side of the card. Flipping it over, Rich could see that the other side had a very small print URL address as well as what looked to be a very miniscule QR code. After studying it for a little while longer, Rich finally told the group what he saw and passed the card to them, just in case he had missed anything.

"We should probably take this back to the office soon so we can get Pike to trace this URL and maybe see what this code leads to as well." Jane says as she is looking over the card for herself.

"I agree, but we already have the criminals in custody and cooperating. Is there anything else we need to get out of them?" Kurt asks as he looks to Reade and Zapata.

"I'm not sure. He gave up that card so quickly that I'm hesitant to believe anything he says." Tasha says as she bites her lip in concentration. "Maybe see if they will tell us whether they were the same people for all the heists? It would be good to have that confirmed so we aren't arresting only four people when there should be countless others."

"Zapata makes a good point." Reade interjects as he looks over some of his notes. "We know they look similar, thanks to Rich, but we don't know for sure yet until we can see the screenshots of all the heists side by side."

After a lull in the conversation, with everyone being deep in their own thoughts, Patterson breaks the silence. "I will say by now you can probably ask one or two more questions before the spell ends."

Rich emerges from his musing, he forgot all about the spell. "We need to get them in a police car before the spell ends. They may become hostile, and even with handcuffs that could cause us some problems."

"Ok, let's get them headed that way and ask them about the other heists on the way." Kurt nods his head in agreement.

Patterson waits for the assent from the group as a whole before continuing, "As you walk them to the police vehicles, the remnants of the spell just barely holding on, you ask them whether they were the people from the other jobs. They confirm that, yes, they were, but that the other guy had made sure to impress on them how replaceable they were if they were to mess up. As you get them pushed into the back of the police cars and shut the doors, the spell fades. You watch as King Tut's face goes from pleasant affability, to confusion, to rage. He immediately turns and locks eyes with you Rich, yelling something from the car and trying to bang his head against the window hard enough to break it. One of the cops immediately administers something from a syringe into his arm, and he quickly becomes docile and unconscious."

"Well that escalated quickly." Rich quips. "Anywho, back to the FBI?"

"Yeah, let's get back to Pike and have her work her magic on the card. That seems to be the next lead to whomever is in charge of this whole thing." Reade taps the card against his hand thoughtfully. "They said they talked to this guy, right? I mean he handed them his card. Did they say anything about what he may have looked like?"

Patterson shakes her head, "You guys did not ask that question, I'm sorry. You can attempt it now, but one of them is knocked out, and the other three know their boss was hoodwinked due to his reaction after the spell faded. I'm afraid you're not going to get any sort of quality information out of them now."

"Shit! I didn't even think about that." Jane says, banging her fist against the table.

"It's alright guys, we still have the card. This has at least two quality leads on it, the website and the code-thing." Kurt reaches over and rubs one of Jane's shoulder to comfort her. "In the end, it won't matter we didn't ask what he looked like, we will find him, and stop him, all the same."

"Ok, back to FBI headquarters it is. Let's go see the gorgeous Pike again." Tasha grins widely and winks across the table at Patterson.

Patterson rolls her eyes, but smiles warmly at the flattery. "You get back to New York with no problems. It's all over the news that the criminals involved in the heist was brought down by the FBI. You walk into the office to a standing ovation from everyone, as they think you have solved the whole mystery. Do you guys head straight to Pike?" After a second's hesitation, they all nod in agreement. "You get to Pike and hand her the business card. _'Woah, they just happened to have a business card on hand? That's kind of strange.'_ "

Jane responds in character to Pike, _"We thought so too, but apparently Rich cast some sort of spell on one of the people, and they were really friendly towards us. I don't think they would have given us any information at all otherwise, so it was a good move on his part."_ Jane nods her head toward Rich, who is beaming with the praise.

 _"Well, okay. I can go ahead and run this through the system and scan it in if you like. That way we can see if there's any hidden messages or clues not visible to the naked eye?"_ Patterson, switching back to her own voice continues, "You watch as Pike goes over to the scanner and scans in the card. Images of both the front and back side of the card appears on the screen in front of you. She pulls up the URL and you all see that it is a message board on some kind of antiques website. As King Tut said, it is all in coded messages, but you think that they will be easy enough for Pike's system to crack. She then pulls up the QR code and scans that in." Patterson pauses for dramatic effect before proceeding, "As the scan completes, you all watch helplessly as every single screen in the lab immediately goes black, all you see is a blinking white underscore."

"Oh, man, Pike's gonna kill us!" Rich exclaims while running his hands down the side of his face.

Patterson switches back to Pike's voice, _"Guys, what just happened? What was on that card?!"_

 _"We don't know, that's why we brought it to you!"_ Rich's voice begins rising with every word, he is starting to utterly freak out.

"You watch on the screen as the white underscore begins to move across the black screen. It starts typing out 'Knock Knock' over and over again, each pair of words ending up on their own separate line. As this happens the lights in the lab begin to flicker. On the personal computers of the other lab techs, you see lines upon lines of code start zooming across the monitor. After another minute, the whole office's power goes out… and comes back on. As soon as you have power again, there is now a video placed where the white underscore was, beneath it lies another line of text 'Play Me'."

"Damn, are all the computers in the office still down? Or are they still running code?" Tasha inquires.

"They all have the same video and text on their screens that you do in Pike's lab." Patterson smiles mischievously.

"Well, no way to go but through." Reade sighs and says, "We press play on the video."

"The video begins playing. You see before you, Kurt, who begins speaking in a British accent, _'You have done well to capture my underlings, but that's only part of the game.'_ You see as Kurt morphs into Jane, now with her own British accent, _'They were the easy targets for you to pick off, I knew it wouldn't take a lot of brain cells to overcome them.'_ Jane morphs into Tasha, _'That's why you hire criminals who are replaceable. They are there to be used and thrown away when their value has expired.'_ Tasha morphs into Reade, _'They were playing too loose. They did not listen to the instructions they were given, so they had to retire prematurely.'_ Reade finally changes stature to show Rich on the screen, _'You should all be receiving news by now that a most unfortunate accident has occurred in Egypt. Those criminals from the world-famous heists have tragically all been found dead.'_ You watch as Rich pantomimes tears running down his face before turning into a human figure cloaked in darkness, all you can see is his outline. When he begins to speak, it seems as if he is using a voice changer as he says, _'The stage is set. You have all the clues you need to find me. Your predicament is whether you will figure it out in time.'_ On the screen beside the figure is a countdown timer. It is currently set at twenty-four hours and begins counting down. _'If you cannot find me in time, then you are not worthy to play my game. I will cripple your government to its knees. It is inevitable destruction.'_ " Patterson changes her body language, sitting back up from the forward snarling position she was in previously.

The group sits in stunned silence, seconds stretching to minutes, the only thing that can be heard in the apartment is the commotion from the street below. After a few minutes of quiet tension, everyone jumps from the comparatively loud noise of Rich's words, "What in Merlin's beard is going on? Hell's bells." He shakes his head in bewilderment. "Well guys, I think we have just found the big bad guy. Now all we have to do is try to piece together who he is and how to find him."

"We will have to do it the hard way, the systems are still down. It's only showing us the countdown timer now. We won't even be able to have Pike try to decode the voice." Kurt says in a gruff voice as he leans back in his chair with his arms crossed.

Jane bites the inside of her cheek, mentally replaying everything they have done so far. "If, as he says, we have all the clues needed to find him, then we just need to pour back over the previous cases. Every clue, every detail, needs to be reassessed. It has to all point us to one common end, him."

"We also need to think about what they were going to do for this last heist too. Remember, we caught them mid act. So they didn't get a chance to really leave anything behind to tell us what they were going to hit next." Tasha points out, while tapping her pencil against her lips thoughtfully.

"True, but they were wearing their get up. Maybe that would give us a clue in itself?" Reade says as he looks back over his notes, "We saw a small King Tut, a Nefertiti, a Cleopatra, and a man in a toga."

Rich retorts in a singsong voice, "One of these things is not like the other."

"So, you think the toga wearing man may be significant?" Jane asks before Reade can comment.

"I think it's the only thing that makes sense. In all the heists there was something correlated with their getup, or trinkets that they left behind, and their next target. We were already in Egypt, so I feel like we can rule out the ones wearing Egyptian garb; and as Tasha mentioned, we stopped them before they could leave any extra items at the scene." Rich shrugs, "I could be wrong of course, but who are we kidding, I'm rarely mistaken."

Reade rolls his eyes at Rich and turns back to Jane, "Ancient Romans and Greeks were well known for wearing togas. Maybe this person is in one of those countries?"

"I don't know. I feel like that's almost too easy, too on the nose. At all the previous heists there was a deeper connection to the next. The stuffed rat toy, Sherlock's hat, the tea set and pipe; all these things we had to look past the surface to understand what they were supposed to lead to." Jane explains while running one of her fingers around the rim of her glass.

Kurt takes a deep breath and supplies, "Well, he could be a famous Greek or Roman person, meant to lead us to some other place?"

Rich guffaws, "Too bad there's no short supply of famous Greeks and Romans throughout all of history! It's like finding a specific needle in a ginormous bag of needles."

With a shake of their heads, the group falls into silence again. All trying to mentally add up the clues from the previous encounters as well as somehow fitting in the toga wearing man. After a few minutes of quiet contemplation, Patterson is the one to break the silence this time, "How about we order pizza? Get some food in your bellies and maybe that will help you with the brainstorm?"

It didn't take long for their neighborhood pizza joint to deliver four large pizzas with various toppings, the group immediately diving in while it was still hot and fresh, thankful for the break so they can circle back to the problem at hand with fresh eyes and full stomachs.


	8. Chapter 8: Riddle Me This

Riddle Me This

As the pizza is finished, the dishes are cleared, and the group sits back down to the table ready to take another crack at the conundrum they are facing. Rich is still wiping off his mouth with a napkin when a thought hits him, "Do you guys think it's weird that those criminals had British accents and the video made us have British accents too?"

Reade shrugs his shoulders, "I mean we already went to England once, do you really think that the next clue would lead us back there?"

"I don't know, but I could have sworn that the shrouded figure, even with the voice changer, sounded like he may have also had a British accent." Rich gets up to throw his napkin away and wash the grease off his hands before handling any of his precious dice.

"It would have to be a major coincidence if it wasn't supposed to mean something. It wouldn't hurt to try and go down that line of thought. It's not like we have too many other leads right now." Kurt says as he examines the business card for the first time.

"If they all have British accents, and they happen to be from England, that would mean somehow the guy in the toga is tied to England as well. But how?" Jane muses.

"Just brainstorming here, but he could be trying to emulate a Greek or Roman god, or just a famous male person." Reade pauses a few seconds before adding, "Like Julius Caesar or something."

Rich tilts his head back and forth quizzically, "It is said that he and Cleopatra had a relationship. To my, admittedly, very little knowledge though, there wasn't any kind of major landmark place that was involved with the couple."

"Patterson, do you happen to have what the video said written down somewhere?" Jane asks as she looks over her frantic notes from before their pizza break. "I tried to write everything down, but I think I may have missed some things, or got the wording wrong. That may end up being important."

Patterson gives Jane a small smile, trying not to give too much away with her facial expressions, "Sure, that's no problem." She picks up a few of the papers that she has strewn behind the DM screen until she finds another notecard she had preemptively made for this very reason. She hands it off to Jane, who sees that not only does it have the words, but whose character said which line.

"Damn, this is perfect. You're always so prepared! It's impressive!" Jane starts looking over the notecard immediately, writing down any specific words that she thinks may be important. "I feel like the first part of the video is just him mocking us, playing with us. The second part is where my gut is telling me there may be clues, but I'm just not sure which lines are supposed to be the clues and which ones are red herrings. Anyone else want to take a look?" Jane holds the notecard out, to which Rich immediately raises his hand.

He receives the notecard from Jane and leans over towards Tasha so they both can read it at the same time. Tasha shrugs after reading it over, "It just seems like more derision to me. More threats. I mean, 'cripple your government to its knees' and 'it is inevitable destruction' just make it sound like we have long shot odds of success."

"I feel like I have heard that last line somewhere before." Rich pauses trying to recall where it was from, but after a minute of trying to remember, he gives up. "I'm not sure where, it just sounds familiar. I agree with Tasha that the crippling the government talk is just a threat. The other words that are jumping out at me from the last lines are 'time', 'game', and 'stage'. 'Time' is mentioned a few different spots, but it may just be trying to add pressure to us, making us realize we are on the clock or bad things happen. He mentions 'game' a couple times, but that could just be him trying to prove how intelligent he is that he is toying with us, and our government, for the sake of his own amusement. 'Stage' is the one that seems out of place to me. 'The stage is set' could just mean that his setup has come to fruition, or it could mean something more. Maybe things are supposed to take place in an arena somewhere or in some sort of public display?" Rich starts mentally running down that rabbit hole, becoming quiet in contemplation.

"Are there any stages where men wearing togas is a normal occurrence?" Reade asks, thinking back to how they felt the toga was a major clue.

"Jinkies!" Rich yells. "Reade you're a genius. That's exactly how this all fits. How did I not see it before! Boston and I went to plays all the time. That's how it fits!" Rich says excitedly.

"So somewhere in London, there's a play, with a man in a toga?" Reade asks skeptically.

"Yes! Don't you see! We're supposed to go see Shakespeare!" Rich tilts his head slightly, looking up towards the ceiling, putting one hand over his chest and reaching out his other arm parallel to the floor, palm up, as if holding an imaginary object. Realizing no one else has put the puzzle together, he exclaims "Antony and Cleopatra! The Shakespeare play! That's why they came in together! Remember? When Patterson was describing what I was seeing on the monitor she specifically said that the man in the toga was on Cleopatra's arm!" Rich flips through his notes until he finds the page he hastily scrawled on during that previous session, he shows it to the rest of the group.

"That actually does make quite a bit of sense. Him being on her arm could have been a hint that they were supposed to be a couple, or at least paired together in some way," Jane supplies in agreement.

Reade sets his pencil down and leans forward onto the table, "There has to be hundreds of places that a play can be found. How are we supposed to know which place to go to?"

"True, there are a lot of theaters." Rich says solemnly, "But there is only one grandiose theatre that a prick like this bad guy would even bother with. None other than Shakespeare's very own, Globe Theatre; which nowadays would be the recreation called Shakespeare's Globe in London."

"Ok, so we would go back to London to check out Shakespeare's Globe, then what? This bad guy is just standing there with open arms, waiting for us to walk in?" Kurt says dubiously.

"Oh, no, it's totally a trap." Rich pauses before adding, "But he doesn't know that we know it's a trap. Even if he suspects that we know that it's a trap, he will still go through with it because that's just what egotistical evil geniuses do… so I've heard."

"Right, you wouldn't know anything about that… since you're not a genius," Tasha says with a grin and lightly punches Rich's shoulder.

"Listen Catwoman, Batman doesn't need any help from you. I just need myself, my brain, and my toys." Rich immediately regrets his wording, "Not like that. You know what I mean."

"You can keep your toys, little man, I'll stick to the real thing." Tasha turns smiling towards Patterson, slightly opening her mouth so that her tongue is barely visible beyond her lips, raising one of her eyebrows.

Patterson rolls her eyes at Tasha's teasing but cannot control the heat that reaches her cheeks. She continues to try and sit there like a fly on the wall, just letting her friends strategize all the while taking mental notes for what they may try to do once they arrive at a destination.

"Alright you two, retract the claws," Jane says with a chuckle. "We are in a time crunch here. We have less than twenty-four hours to travel somewhere, supposedly London, get to the theatre and figure out who this 'evil genius' even is as well as what he wants. That's a tall order by itself, but we are also having to worry about it being a trap. What's the game plan?" After Jane finishes speaking, everyone turns towards Rich expectantly.

"Woah, did I just become the leader of the group? Because I totally think I just became the official leader!" A smile as large as Pangea spreads across Rich's face.

"Don't let it go to that already big head of yours or you won't be able to fit through the door on your way out tonight," Tasha quips. "You have the most experience in this game and may know more about what kinds of traps we may be walking into. It would be idiotic for us not to take some advice from an old Dungeons & Dragons geezer like you."

"You know, if I dig deep enough, there was actually a compliment in there. I think this is progress. You're starting to really like me." Rich winks at Tasha before turning to the rest of the group, "If I was him, I would be having scouts or cameras outside of the building. Maybe setup some big thing to happen at the front doors. We should try to find another way in, he may be thinking we're imbeciles that will just come through the front."

"Ok, so maybe we call up our friends at Interpol, or the British government, and get them to let us into their CCTV footage? Maybe scope out the place prior to our arrival to see if there's anything noteworthy?" Jane suggests, turning towards Patterson.

"If that's what you all want to do, I'm sure that could be arranged," Patterson says as she mentally calculates what they may see on these imaginary CCTV footages. After a brief pause, and nods from the group, she continues on, "You call them up and we will say that on your flight over you are able to look at archived CCTV footage of the previous week, focusing on the area surrounding Shakespeare's Globe. You see that at the start of the week, it is business as usual; a lot of people coming and going to view the plays being hosted at The Globe. You see a fair amount of cars and buses travelling near the theatre, dropping people off. Every now and then you see some really fancy sports cars drive by the camera. Around the midweek portion of the footage, you start to see construction workers showing up and roping off certain areas surrounding the theatre. As the week moves on, a sign is hung on the door saying that Shakespeare's Globe Theatre is temporarily closed due to reconstruction. After that point, there are a lot of tourists still taking photos of the outside of the building, but you don't see anyone going in and out besides construction crews."

"That seems pretty uneventful. Are we sure we have the right location?" Reade asks the group.

"I think it's a good place to start. We might as well cross it off our list before proceeding to the next. It is highly suspicious that it suddenly went down for some reconstructive work. Maybe that is the cover for this big bad evil genius?" Tasha turns towards Rich, "What's going on in that pretty little head of yours?"

"First of all, thank you for saying it's pretty. I made sure to use some lavender oil on it this morning." Rich whips his head from side to side like he is in a shampoo commercial. "Secondly, I agree. I think this could be their cover, but if not, best to get our number one contender out of the way so we still have time to go back to the drawing board. I still think we should see if there is a backdoor entrance, or another way in besides the front."

Kurt nods towards Rich, "Ok. Then we have our plan. We try to go around back to see if there's an entrance there. If not, we will see if any other point of entry is feasible. Worst case, we will go through the front, very carefully, with our guards up."

"Ok, let's do this thing!" Jane says and hold out her hand toward the middle of the table, eliciting laughs from the group. Everyone puts their hand in and Jane begins, "Team on three. One, two, three…"

"TEAM!" everyone yells at the top of their voice.

Patterson tries to mentally hardcode this moment in vivid detail. She knows it will be one that she will cherish for the rest of her life. Still chuckling she begins, "Ok guys. You get to London without any issue. You head on over to Shakespeare's Globe. Are you all wanting to circle around to the back?"

Kurt looks to Jane and Reade before replying, "Yes. What is it that Rich said before? Never split the party. Besides, he already knows we may be coming."

"Also we are wearing our Kevlar, oh great and powerful DM." Rich adds quickly.

Patterson smiles at the flattery, "I had assumed so, and I still have your Armor Class written down from earlier. You all head around to the back of the theatre, but the only doors you find are chained, bolted, boarded up, and have a sign hanging on it saying 'The way is shut'. You have a feeling that you won't be able to get in through this route. You can certainly try, though."

Reade raises an eyebrow at Patterson, "Meaning we have very little chances of success?" After Patterson shrugs in response he continues, "Did we see any other doors or points of entries besides the front?"

"I would say, two people could do a three-sixty of the building and roll some Perception checks to gauge whether you see anything."

Reade and Jane volunteer for the task, each rolling one d20 die and adding their Wisdom modifiers.

"That is a seventeen total," Reade says confidently.

"Oh, that is good! I was able to get a nineteen total," Jane says with a genuine smile.

"You two do a lap around Shakespeare's Globe, looking for any other way in. The only doors you come across are the back doors, that look to be nigh impenetrable, and the front doors, which appear to look normal. You look up to see if scaling is an option, but the walls are rather smooth, and the windows don't seem to have big enough gaps in the bars for you to get through. It does not appear that there are any other entrances than those," Patterson ends with a small shoulder shrug.

"I guess we'll just have to make a dramatic entrance through the front then!" Rich says with a sniff.

"Alright, form up. People who are tougher to hit in front, weaker ones in back," Kurt directs. "So I would say formation would be me, Reade, Jane, Tasha, and Rich."

Patterson watches her group eagerly as she asks, "Do you enter?"

"We will pull out our guns and try the door," Kurt says immediately.

"Oh, wow, just like that. Alright. So, you start to try to open the door…" Patterson begins before being interrupted.

"Wait! We needed to check for traps!" Rich yells as he jumps up from his seat.

"Sorry, but he already tried to open the door," Patterson states solemnly. She sucks in a breath and lets out a huge sigh, "Unfortunately… You start to open the door and…" Patterson pauses here again, seeing how long she can stretch it out.

"Get on with it!" Rich says in a slightly British accent.

Catching the Monty Python reference, Patterson smiles before continuing, "And the door opens, nothing bad happens. You guys are able to walk right in. What you see before you is strange. You see a fairly open area lit by sconces on the wall, but everything seems to be in colors of gray. You also notice that everything around you seems a little pixelated. Upon closer inspection, you see that everything appears to be in 8-bit, and as you look down at yourselves, you see that you are also in 8-bit."

"Woah, what happens if we go back outside?" Rich asks.

"You turn to go back outside, only to find that now this door is not only locked, but the handles have disappeared from it completely. As you are looking at the solid door, a voice rings out, _'Welcome to my stage. If you can get past my minions, then you will be worthy enough to grace my presence. Begin when you are ready.'_ You all turn around to try and face the voice; as you do so, you can see a little further into this large circular room. You see before you five people standing between you and a large throne-type chair near the back of the room across from you. Each of the five people also have what appears to be some kind of animal standing next to them, animals you have never seen before. They are spread out, almost staggered, so that you have to pass each of them one at a time to progress to the next. You look around and the walls appear to be smooth stone with pictures hung every so often. Among the pictures you see some of British sports cars, some of rolling hills, another of a gun, one of a mansion in a country setting, along with various others. You focus again directly in front of you where there are two statues flanking either side of a small walkway, leading you further into the room towards your new opponents. Each of those statues seem to have some kind of animal sitting atop the pedestal." After concluding, Patterson gets up from the table and heads over to a mail tube she had propped up against the side of the counter. She unscrews the top, opening it, and pulls out a large rolled up paper as well as a few handfuls of new paper miniatures. Patterson unrolls her 8-bit map and sets each of the miniatures in their proper positions - the group's 8-bit miniatures, the five 'opponents' they will be facing, as well as their animal companions, and the big throne where she sat a miniature twice the size of all the others.

Kurt looks down at the map to see that it is indeed a circular room, fully outfitted with the statues, as well as the path walkway that Patterson drew on. The path bends at ninety-degree angles near each of the five opponents, looking like a big snake on the board, the head of which leading to the big throne. "So, this path," Kurt says as he gestures at the map, "Does it look like there is anything on either side of it? Do we have to follow it, or can we just cut across straight to the throne?"

"On either side of the path, it appears to be pitch black. You try to concentrate and focus on the area, but all you can see is darkness," Patterson supplies, trying to keep her voice as even as possible.

Kurt turns to look at Jane, and then Rich, "I may be new to this whole D&D thing, but that does not sound good."

"I would advise against trying to go through the pitch-black nothingness," Rich says with a solemn shake of his head. After a brief pause of consideration, he turns to Patterson and asks, "On the statues, is there a plaque or anything? Anything with some writing?"

"As you step forward to take a look, you can see that yes there is an identical plate on each pedestal. It's easy enough to see and read. It has the same insignia as the business card, and the following two lines of text: 'Thinking caps required' and beneath that 'One person per opponent'." Patterson then produces another notecard with the text written out, and the insignia centered above it, just as on the plaque.

"Guess we may not need our guns after all," Rich quips as he looks to the rest of his friends sitting around the table. "I say we all walk through together, then just designate one person to face each opponent. There's five of them, and five of us, so everyone can have their chance to shine."

"That is surprisingly well-spoken of you," Reade says. "I am kind of shocked you would be willing to let everyone have a turn in the limelight."

"Well, contrary to popular belief, I am actually a good person. Plus, this is what Dungeons & Dragons is all about, working together as a group." Rich smiles warmly at the rest of the group before adding, "Also there could be some lethal aspects to this and I want to limit the chances of my character being smoked."

"Ah, there's the Rich I know," Reade says jokingly. "Ok let's proceed to the first one. What number does everyone want to take?"

Everyone sitting around the table just start looking at each other, waiting for one another to speak up. After a minute of silence, Rich speaks up. "I'll take first if no one else wants to."

That was the icebreaker needed for everyone to start talking, theorizing on the clues they had been given thus far. After a few minutes of chatter, the order was finally decided on. It would be Rich, then Kurt, Reade, Zapata, and finally Jane. They thought that since 'thinking caps' was on the statue that they should try to bookend the starting opponent and last opponent with people who tend to be more book smart.

"Ok, now that the order is settled, let's move out," Kurt says. "You're up, Rich."

Patterson picks up from here, "You all start towards the first opponent, making sure you do not accidentally step into the blackness that surrounds each side of the walkway. As you approach and get closer, you see that this opponent has a simple outfit on of black pants and a white shirt, they also have glasses. Beside them stands a quadruped animal-type creature with some kind of flowering plant coming straight up out of its back. Do you step up closer to engage?"

Rich takes a deep breath before saying, "Yes. I will walk up right in front of them."

"As you walk up, and get within range, your vision starts to go black. However, everything in your vision does not go black all at once, you notice as it starts in the middle, and then the black quickly spreads in a gridded fashion spiraling outward until your whole vision is covered. You immediately feel as if there is only you, your opponent, and their animal in a secluded room. They speak up saying, _'A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.'_ What would you like to do?" Patterson says with a stoic face.

"Woah. Ok… I feel like this riddle is familiar." Rich pauses, resting his chin in his hand thinking the puzzle through. "It can't be a chest, or any kind of normal box, since they both have lids and hinges. Is it a bag of holding?"

"You give your answer of 'bag of holding' and immediately you feel as it someone has shot you. You take a wound. You have two left, so you better choose your next guess wisely." Patterson tries to hide the smile that is creeping onto her face. She thought for sure that Rich would know immediately where this riddle originated from, and the answer given.

"OW!" Rich yells as he marks down a wound on his character sheet. "Guess we won't be going all brute force on these puzzles. Point of order, can I still hear the rest of the group while in this room?"

"I don't know, do you guys try to say anything to him?"

Tasha speaks up first, "Sure. I'll say _'Oy, with the poodles already!'_ " Both Tasha and Patterson laugh heartily at the comment, they had just gotten done with a Gilmore Girls marathon the previous weekend. You can be total badasses and still enjoy a TV dramedy.

Still chuckling Patterson lets Rich know, "Yes, you can hear them and you have a feeling they can hear you too. Your comms still seem to be functioning just fine."

"Good to know. I let them know it seems like it will be riddles at each of the opponents, and a wrong answer results in getting an owie. I'll recount to them what my riddle is in case anyone knows it," Rich states while still trying to mull over another possible answer. After a few more minutes of silence, seemingly no one else knew the answer either, Rich finally speaks up again, "Wait, I know where that is from. It's from The Hobbit! The answer is egg! It's an egg!"

Patterson grins at Rich, "Took you long enough. Alright, the same black spiraling squares show up and after a blink of your eyes, you're standing back with your friends. The opponent and the creature beside them step aside allowing you all to pass. You walk up to the next one, which I believe will be Kurt's, and you see yet another person wearing black pants and a white shirt. This time though, they seem to have a closely buzzed haircut and have very severe eyebrows making them look perpetually angry. Beside them is another animal-type creature who looks very similar to a fluffy dog, or maybe a fox, or a hybrid of the two, whose mouth almost seems to curve into a slight smile."

"Ok, I go ahead and walk forward," Kurt says, feeling better knowing that the other people in his group will be able to communicate with him 'in game' for this riddle.

"The same blackout sequence happens for you, and you also end up in what appears to be a separate room with this opponent and their creature. They give you your riddle, _'What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?'_ "

"What kind of question is that? Who would even know that fact about a bird?!" Kurt smiles at the absurdity of the question and before anyone else has a chance to chime in he continues, "I have no idea."

"You feel a sharp pain located near your right shoulder, feeling something pierce deep within your skin. You've taken a wound." Patterson marks down on her sheet that both Kurt and Rich each have one wound.

Rich is emphatically trying to motion with his hands for Kurt to tell the group what his clue is. He tries hard not to metagame too much, and wants Kurt to pass along the information himself. After no response, he puts his head in his hands and thinks of The Chicken Dance and starts emulating the first part but adapts the next dance moves to point towards Kurt and then back at everyone else, ending with four claps.

Patterson bursts out laughing, watching Rich both hum the tune and emulate The Chicken Dance was something she never thought she would see in one of her campaigns.

Kurt catching on after the second round of this new adaptation by Rich, says to the group in character, _'Hey guys, I only have two shots left at this one. The riddle is something about the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow. Do any of you have any idea what that means?'_ "

Rich impulsively replies in a loud voice, _"An African or European swallow?!"_

 _"How am I supposed to know that? They did not specify!"_ Kurt says in his character's voice.

 _"No, that's the answer. Say, 'an African or European swallow?' exactly like that."_ Rich by this point has a huge grin on his face, even if he is slightly disappointed he did not get the Monty Python riddle for himself.

"Oh," Kurt says simply. "I will ask the opponent, _'An African or European swallow?'_ "

"You watch as the opponent nods and then poofs into smoke, along with the creature. You blink and you're standing back on the pathway, the man and the creature also step aside to let you and your friends pass. Next up is Reade." Patterson scratches off a checkmark next to Rich and now Kurt so she can keep track of who is coming up next in their order.

"I step up, what does my guy look like?" Reade asks.

"You see before you the same black pants and white shirt, this one is a little heavier set with short dark hair. The creature beside him, you are unsure if it is an animal or not. It looks like if someone took a big ball, added a curly tail, two legs, two arms coming out of where you think a torso would be, as well as two big pointed ears in between which sits another curl of what you think is fur. It stands like a human, on its two feet, and has its arms straight out to its side, slowly shifting its weight from one foot to the other. The unnerving bit to you is that it never seems to stop smiling, you see within its mouth two very small teeth where the canine teeth would be on a human." Patterson pauses here to see if Reade wants to do anything else first, when there is no reply she continues on, "Same fade to black happens to you, you end up in your own room with the heavy-set male and his creature. He speaks at once, _'Not chest or box is now discussed. Money can be held in it, but just as we test its metal, within it there is rust.'_ and then silence falls again."

"Ok, first off, I repeat it over the comms to the group. Get that out of the way." Reade pauses trying to think through the riddle on his own. "If it has to be something that can hold money, and maybe something made of metal that rusts on the inside? But it's not a box or a chest. So, it can't be a safety deposit box, nor a chest of gold… It could be a mattress? I know some people who have stored money in there and it has metal within that would rust. I'm going to say _'Mattress'_."

"Your thigh feels like it is on fire, you look down to see a wide gaping hole in your leg. It has missed any vital areas, but you are beginning to bleed and it hurts like hell. You take a wound." Patterson adds another hatch mark on her sheet.

"Damn. _'Guys, any thoughts? I know mattress isn't the answer.'_ I will wait for any kind of response before guessing again." Reade states as he looks back to his group for suggestions.

"I don't know what this one is," Jane says with a grave face. "The only thing that went through my mind was a coin purse, since that's not a chest or box, and I'm sure there has to be some that is made with metal."

Kurt shakes his head, not coming up with anything himself. He looks over to Tasha and Rich, "Either of you have any ideas?"

"I'm not sure, I'm still thinking." Rich says with his hand over his eyes, trying to focus all of his brain's processing capacity on this one riddle.

"I mean, it makes sense what Jane said. There could be rusty items within a coin purse, and it in itself could be rusty too." Tasha scratches an itch on her cheek as she ponders the riddle more, "What if we are overlooking something though. It said 'just as we test its metal' you don't test a coin purse or anything that normally holds money… not unless you count trying to stuff too much in there."

"True. It also said 'within it there is rust' maybe it's not meaning physically in it, but in the word itself? Like a clue within a clue?" Reade writes down the word 'rust' on his paper, hoping that visually seeing the word will help him find the answer.

"If it's not physical maybe it's like a bank account or 401k or an IRA? Something that holds money but isn't tangible?" Tasha asks.

"Or… what if it is a trust?!" Reade's eyes light up as the light bulb went off in his mind. A trust isn't a box or chest, money can be held in it, you test people's trust all the time, and it contains the word 'rust'! I say, _'Trust'_."

"Nice job guys!" Patterson hops up to give them high fives. "That is correct! Everything fades to black and an instant later you're back with the group. The heavy-set opponent and the creature next to him step aside just as the previous ones did. You all walk forward and Tasha, it's now your turn."

"I step up, ready to take on whatever is asked." Tasha says confidently.

"The person you step up to is a smaller person with a black suit and white shirt, he is also wearing a nice black fedora. Beside him sits a really stunning dog-type creature. It has very silky looking fur, even in this 8-bit realm, and you would think it was a show dog, except its tail is a little different. Instead of one tail, it looks like it has quite a number of tails. There are so many that some are curled around beside it like a cat would, while others are bent and tucked over in a hooked position; giving this animal quite a striking profile view. You step closer and the same black squares show for you, and the same room description. The man in the fedora rattles off your riddle _'If you look at the numbers on my face, you won't find thirteen any place.'_ "

Tasha mumbles the riddle to herself before telling the group the riddle. "I… I think I know what this one is. _'Guys, does it make sense if it is a clock? It has a face and it is only one through twelve.'_ "

"Yes! I think that's totally what it is!" Jane says with an excited air to her voice.

"Sure, the DM gives you the easy one," Rich says playfully with a roll of his eyes.

"Actually, just so we are clear." Patterson puts a hand over the questions and answers but leaves the numbers unobstructed, raising the paper she had printed off before the session started, to show the group. "I made these questions for each of the opponents long ago, you guys were the ones to choose your order. Where the questions fell were in your hands the whole time." Patterson sets the paper back down behind her Dungeon Master screen.

"I know, I just like giving her a hard time," Rich says while he crosses his eyes at Tasha.

Tasha laughs despite herself and continues on, "I tell the fedora-man _'Clock'_."

"You come away unscathed, back to the group. The smaller man in a fedora, and the dog-like creature, step aside allowing you to pass. Last up, we have Jane. I take it you also step forward?" Patterson asks.

"Yes, we're so close to the end! Let's get this bastard!" Jane says excitedly.

"In front of you stands a man in what looks to be suspenders. Same black pants and white shirt, but he has a black newsboy cap on. The creature beside him looks to be a gigantic bird, standing much taller than the man next to it. It has three almost shard-like feathers coming up from the crown of its head. Large wings stretch out before the creature pulls it back in with an annoyed glance at the throne. You see that it has a long flowing tail that is about twice the length of its body. You step forward and encounter the same blackness and the same room as your compatriots. When you arrive, the man says, _'Thirty white horses on a red hill: first they champ, then they stamp, then they stand still.'_ Then he puts a calming hand on the bird creature, waiting for your answer."

"Holy crap. I don't even know where to begin with that. I'll immediately relay that to the group so we can brainstorm," Jane says as she feels her confidence level drop. She looks over to Rich who has a huge smiling appearing on his face. "Please tell me you know what this is alluding to," her voice almost pleading. They had gotten so far, and she didn't want the progress to end on her account, but she was drawing a complete blank at what this riddle was supposed to mean.

Rich changes his voice and hunches over like a creature holding onto some small object in his hands, "Yesss preciousss." Patterson was the only one that got the reference, and he was happy at least someone applauded his spot-on Gollum impression. Switching back to his normal voice, Rich explains, "It's also from The Hobbit. It's another of the riddles that is given between Bilbo and Gollum when they are trying to outwit each other in the cave. If no one objects..." Rich trails off looking around at his friends to make sure they didn't want to try to figure it out on their own. Receiving a lot of shaking heads, he continues on, "The answer is teeth." As he says this he smiles big and chomps down a couple times, pointing at his mouth, "Champing."

"I for one, am very glad you're a huge nerd." Jane says with a smile and a fist bump to Rich. "I let the guy in suspenders know that it is _'Teeth'_ for my answer."

"You watch as the room fades to black, and you are once again back with your friends. Your group stands in front of the suspenders opponent and the gigantic bird as they move aside, letting you have a direct path to the throne. Upon approaching you notice how large the throne is, as well as how large the person sitting in it is. Even though this entire area is grayscale he seems to be in vivid color. A man sits before you, looking well beyond the years of a normal mortal. You notice that his skin seems to be stretched thin over his bones, making him appear almost skeletal and suffering from malnutrition. He has an eye patch over his left eye and a slight green glow is coming from around the patch. You also look down further to see that he is missing one of his hands, but none of this deters him from giving you all the most deprecating eat-shit look he can muster." Patterson pauses here, but when no one interrupts, she continues on, "He turns to you and says in a deep bass voice, _'You have done well to make it this far, even if there was some luck involved.'_ As he says this, he waves a hand in an outward sweeping motion and you all feel as your comms get fried, you all quickly get them out of your ears before they burst into flames." Patterson pauses again before gravely saying, "Is there anything else you guys would like to do before this goes any further?"

Rich looks down at his character sheet, seeing what he has in his inventory, "Yes, I would like to go ahead and take one of my vials of healing draft. I know I only have one wound, but this is the boss and I'm not sure what all is about to go down." He looks towards Kurt and Reade, "You two should probably do the same. That still leaves the three of us with one vial each, and the girls will still have both of theirs."

After Rich, Kurt, and Reade take the vials and heal up, Patterson makes the changes on her side of the screen as well before continuing on as the man in the throne. _"I feel I may have underestimated you, made this too easy. I'm a man of my word, though, and you have made it through all the same. You get one chance at this riddle, and you have to give your answer within five minutes. If you succeed, I will go away forever."_ After a lengthy pause Patterson sucks in a breath before continuing, _"What... is my name?"_ After the question is out, she pulls brings over their old-fashioned kitchen timer that has the dial, and the most appropriate ticking noise, setting it to five minutes. _Tick tick tick_

A panicked look spreads across everyone's face. They all start looking back and forth at each other, hoping that someone has an idea on this person's name. They start going over everything they had encountered, they know it must have something to do with either a V or an O since those are the two symbols that are on the business card they had procured, as well as on the statues in the front. Directionless chatter starts breaking out involving all of the famous 'V' or 'O' people they could think of, first starting with British history, then moving on to Greek, Roman, and American. This continues on minute after minute, as each second passes by the group's voices start to get louder and more frantic. Anyone passing by would think they must be playing some sort of party game like Pictionary, with all the voices shouting out random names.

As the timer ticked down to under a minute, Patterson speaks up again, _"Don't tell me you imbeciles still haven't figured that out. It's right under your noses. Last chaaance."_

"Oh my god, oh my god. Ok guys, think! Think!" Rich says hurriedly. "We have come across his name somewhere. We only have like thirty seconds left!"

Everyone starts talking over each other again, talking about the previous clues, locations, people's names they've encountered. Anything and everything in the limited number of seconds they have left. Finally, Patterson starts counting down from five and Kurt blurts out, "VICTOR!"

Patterson gives a small smile as she takes on the voice yet again of the man in the throne, _"I am not some petty Victor. If you do not know my name now, you will SOON!"_ Patterson then switches back to her own voice once again, "You all hear this very loud rushing sound as water starts to storm out of nowhere, sweeping you up in a tidal wave. As you are all swept up in this clear water, you see each other plain as day all being picked up and thrown towards the solid door at the front of the room. You start to pick up speed as you get closer and closer to the door. Right as you are almost sure you will be smashed into pulp up against it, you pass right through, and into the streets of London. You are thrown down with such force against the pavement that you all take two wounds. You are beaten and battered, lying prone on the ground soaked from head to toe. You look back up at the theatre, but the outside of Shakespeare's Globe looks just as it did before, as if nothing had transpired."

"On our way out, with the water being so clear. Did I happen to see any of the other paintings in the room?" Rich asks, as he marks down his two wounds on his character sheet.

"Roll a Perception check at disadvantage. It would have been very hard for you to focus with all of the water forcing you out the doors," Patterson says.

Rich rolls his favorite d20 die twice, and takes the lower of the two rolls, adding his Wisdom modifier. "Not bad, that's still a seventeen total. I rolled really well both times," he says cheerfully.

"I will say that on your way out, you were able to see two other pictures. One was of scantily clad women, and the other looked to be of some kind of cocktail glass." Patterson supplied while making a couple of notes on her papers behind the screen.

"I want to go back to the door and try it again," Kurt says in a clipped tone. "He will not be defeating us."

"Ok, you walk back up to the door and it opens. You peer inside and there's nothing there, just an empty stage. You see a brightly lit room, no people, no creatures, no items on the wall other than what would normally be at Shakespeare's Globe. It's as if everything you just encountered vanished." Patterson snaps, "Poof." She waits a brief second before continuing, "And that, is where we will be ending tonight's session. I know this one ran a little later than the others, but there just wasn't a good stopping point until now."

Kurt looks up to see it is almost two in the morning. "This isn't over! We will figure out where he went, and we will defeat him!"

"Yes, dear," Jane says with a placating smile and pats Kurt's arm. "But, that will have to wait for next time. Us being so tired probably did not help us with figuring out his name, but now we will be able to sleep on it. Something may come to us between now and our next session, then we will just have to find him again, right?"

"Possibly," Rich states as he rubs his itchy eyes. "Although, he could have also retreated into a lair somewhere that we now have to find." Rich shrugs at his own statement. "I agree that some sleep is needed before we figure out this mystery, gang."

Everyone packs up all the items they brought, getting ready to head towards the door. Saying their goodbyes along the way, Tasha and Patterson give hugs to their friends as they exit the apartment.

"Well that was an eventful night!" Tasha says with a grin. "I'm exhausted, raincheck about earlier and I promise I will make it up to you tomorrow?"

Patterson is thankful for the raincheck as she too is exhausted, "You read my mind. I need sleep. Now." She turns off the lights and heads into the bedroom with her girlfriend, already mentally planning their next D&D session.


	9. Chapter 9: A Stately Manner

Chapter 9: A Stately Manner

As Patterson opens the door for their next game night, Rich bursts in wearing a white tuxedo, a fake cigar between his lips, and a Martini mixer. "The name's Bond, James Bond," he says with a huge grin plastered on his face. "I figured it out, and I did not bother you at work about it. Aren't you proud?!"

"Now that you mention it, it was incredibly quiet at work this week. I actually felt like I was more productive than usual…" Patterson trails off while a smirk creeps onto her face. "I'm kidding, I was actually worried that your smug look meant you did something to my tea or pulled a prank on me somehow that I just had not figured out yet."

"Oh, you would know if I pulled a prank. You wouldn't know what I did, but you most certainly would know something was up." Rich says as he chews on his cigar.

"You do know that James Bond probably smoked Cubans, right?" Patterson says, smirk still present on her face.

As Patterson finishes her reply, Rich bites down hard, eating a piece of the cigar. With a full mouth, he says, "It's chocolate… way better… than… the real thing." He finishes it off and licks his fingers. "Nothing beats chocolate."

Tasha pops her head out from the bedroom, "Chocolate? Who has chocolate?!"

Rich smiles and reaches into his bag to produce the carton of chocolate cigars. He bends at the waist, slightly bowing, "For you, my dear. Only the finest cigars for you, why they are even wrapped in gold! Gold I say!"

Chuckling, Tasha takes one of the cigars. "You may be cheesy, but I'm not about to turn down chocolate. Thanks for bringing it." After a moment's pause, she turns back to him, "Why _did_ you bring them? These are an odd snack choice."

Rich puts on a smug grin. "I know where to find the bad guy, and all this," he pauses for a flourish of his hand, sweeping over his wardrobe choice, drink choice, and smoke choice, "relates to where we need to go."

Tasha looks him up and down quizzically, "Miami?"

"You are not worthy. You will have to find out with the others. Barkeep! I'd like a martini, shaken, not stirred." Rich shakes his head at her and with a huff, turns away. He walks past Patterson and goes into the kitchen to create his own drink, adding along the way in a stage whisper, "I'm disappointed in you, too. How can you guys not have binged 007 yet?"

"It's on the to do list, right behind Spaceballs," Patterson says, while doing the President Skroob salute.

Tasha rolls her eyes, she knows the nerd side of Patterson is larger and deeper than the ocean, and she absolutely loves her for it. Sitting through movies and shows that she would not normally watch is more than worth it to see her girlfriend light up like a beacon any time some insanely nerdy reference or phrase comes up.

A knock on the door knocks Tasha out of her daze, and she goes to answer it. "Hey guys! Rich is already here, but don't ask him if he is supposed to be from Miami, he's a little touchy about his costume."

Jane and Kurt smile and shake their head, while Reade just rolls his eyes and follows his friends through the door.

Upon seeing Rich, Jane immediately asks gleefully, "So how was the flight from Miami?"

Rich glares and points a finger at Tasha, "You set that up. If you must know, tonight the name is Bond, James Bond, thank you very much. I'm currently taking applications for Moneypenny's role if you know anyone who wants to apply."

"Actually, I think you're more of a 'Q' than a 'Bond'," Tasha says with a sly smirk. She sees the shocked face of Patterson and adds, "Of course I have seen some James Bond movies. Hot girls, action packed, sign me up!"

"If you knew about James Bond, how did you not get my reference earlier?" Rich asks, trying to hide the hurt from creeping into his voice. He thought he hit the nail on the head with his outfit.

"Oh, I did. All it took was seeing the Martini mix and the fancy tailored suit to know where you were going with it. I just thought it would be good not to fluff your ego too much." Tasha gives Rich a warm smile, "You do look like you could belong in a Bond movie, so props for that."

"Thank you, that's very kind of you to admit." Rich clears his throat, getting rid of the sentimentality he briefly felt, "So, martini anyone?"

After everyone gets their drinks and snacks ready, they all find their way to the table, sitting in their normal spots. Notebooks and pencils get brought out, Rich gets out his fancy new dice tray he recently purchased, and the sound of dice clattering onto the table is ever-present.

Patterson gets settled and starts off the night, "Alright guys, where we last left off, you traced the evil genius back to London, to Shakespeare's Globe. You went inside and encountered an arena where you had to get past each of his minions to get to the throne, and him. You answered riddles successfully, with only a few of you taking hits. You got to the end, wisely used some healing drafts, and encountered the end boss. He asked you one simple question, his name. You were unable to answer and he sent a tidal wave to collect you, slamming you out the door and onto the London streets. You all took two wounds, which you all still have since you haven't healed up. You tried to get back in to The Globe, but upon stepping inside, you see that it is very different from what you encountered. It looks just as a theatre should, with a stage and seating. You all are standing outside planning your next move. What would you like to do?"

Reade speaks up first, "I think the very first thing we all should do is use a healing draft. I know that means that Rich, Kurt, and I will all be all out, but I think it would be best. Jane and Tasha would still have one each."

Kurt leans back and crosses his arms over his chest, "I agree. We need to find this guy, and fast. I don't think we have time to fly all the way back to HQ to heal up for free. We still need to figure out where we are supposed to go, and who the hell this person is."

"I'm afraid I'm no help on the latter, but the former I have covered," Rich says with a cocky grin. "I didn't dress like this for fun, guys… Well, not only for fun, anyways. I know where we need to go!"

After a pause, Reade takes the bait, "Where is that?" Before Rich can reply, Reade quickly amends, "Yes, we all know you're Bond, James Bond. But where does that point us to, and why is James Bond the answer for where we need to go?"

Putting on his best Sean Connery impression, Rich responds, "Well, it's quite simple really. All the portraits in the theatre were pointing us towards James Bond. The pictures of women in bikinis, the British sports cars, the martini glass, the gun, which was supposed to be a _golden_ gun." He switches back to his own voice, finding it very hard to consciously say all the 's' sounds exactly like Connery does. "We find out in the James Bond franchise that his family lived in a manor, which also happened to be featured in one of the pieces of artwork. I took the liberty of looking up where that was supposed to be located. So, we just need to head off to the highlands of Scotland!"

"Ok, that is unquestionably a good catch from you," Reade admits. "But, what about his name? What if we get there and he just asks us his name again?"

"Oh, I don't think that will happen. I think The Globe was supposed to be our 'easy way out'. I think _now_ we will be going to his lair, which may make him a much more formidable opponent. We should still try to figure out his name, or find it out somehow if given the opportunity, though." Rich writes down the word 'name' and circles it in his notebook. "Well, let's get these vials down and head toward Scotland. Everyone ready?"

After nods from the rest of the group Patterson takes her cue, "You all hop on a plane to Scotland. Thanks to Rich's knowledge of the area, you find the spot where James Bond's family house should be. As you look out across the green rolling hills, you do see the mansion, but there seems to be something different than the way you remember it Rich. It seems more foreboding, darker, and has a faint aura emanating from it… like decay." Patterson pauses, and when no questions are asked, she continues on, "You two large pillars standing before you, they are bookending the small, single car width, driveway that heads towards the mansion. Rich, on top of the pillars in place of the stag you thought was there before, instead sits a statue of a hand with an eye embedded in the palm. As you all look up to view this, the eye shifts and looks directly at you. You look up towards the other pillar, and you see that on that statue, the eye has also shifted and is looking in your general direction."

"Well, that's not creepy at all. I would say he knows we are here," Rich says out of the side of his mouth. "Is there anything else on the pillars? In the movie there was a sign saying 'Skyfall'."

"Easy enough, you see that yes there is a plaque on the right-most pillar. It states 'Oakford Manor'." Patterson shrugs, "What next?"

Reade raises an eyebrow at the exchange, "That seems too easy for that to be his name. I mean, his business card did have a 'V' inside a circle, which could have been an 'O', but we are still missing the 'V' part of his name."

"Maybe once we get to the house we will see more clues? Or like Rich said, it may be a moot point by now," Tasha suggests.

"I agree, I say we go ahead and head towards the house. Keep our eyes peeled for anything with a 'V' in case it _is_ needed again." Jane marks down the name 'Oakford' in her notes, making sure to put the letter 'V' in front of it with an underline to fill in later.

With everyone in agreement, they all head towards the house. Once Patterson knows they will actually be going to the mansion, she gets up from the table and walks over to the couch. Crouching down on her hands and knees, she pulls out two big pieces of foam board she had hid beneath the furniture, each with walls about three inches high outlining the two-story mansion. She sets them on the table, one on top of the other, along with pieces of paper covering the top floor so they cannot see the rooms.

Jane notices a small sign near the door, leaning in closer she sees it is a 'Beware' sign covered in cobwebs. "Are these old Halloween decorations?"

Patterson laughs, "Yeah, they are. I had a few things floating around here and thought it would be a very good fit for this mansion. That particular piece was actually decor on a Halloween cake."

"I think it is perfect!" Jane exclaims, "I love the little touches you've added to make things more visually engaging!"

"Thanks! I thought it was a perfect fit myself." Patterson pauses, glad that her friends enjoyed the extra touches she had added, before continuing on with the story, "So, you guys walk up to the house. I'm assuming with your Kevlar on…" Patterson trails off to look over at Rich, who was quickly trying to close his mouth from the interjection he was going to point out. "Kevlar, but no comms. Remember, they were destroyed in the last session. You get to the door, you notice a 'Beware' sign that looks to be so old that it is falling apart. The decay smell is stronger the closer you get to the mansion, and standing here on the doorstep you are having to fight the urge to gag."

"Can we tear off a piece of our shirt to tie around our faces to help with the stench?" Kurt asks.

"You know what, sure. I would say you would just have to take a little off the bottom of your shirts, so you can still be wearing your clothing under the Kevlar. If you all do so, you notice that the smell is still there, but lessened. You no longer feel as if you are going to hurl at any moment." Patterson smiles, waiting for the next unexpected turn of events. She had originally planned on having the smell be so bad they would have to roll disadvantage on their checks, after all it would have been hard to concentrate on anything other than trying not to puke. Now she will just have to come up with a new strategy, _Oh, the life of a Dungeon Master_ , she thought.

"Let's check the door for traps first, just in case, then we can go in and see what we are dealing with," Rich states. "Miss CIA, would you mind checking for us?"

Tasha rolls her eyes at his comment, but proceeds to roll her d20 and after Patterson tells her what to add, she adds her Investigation modifier shown on her character sheet. "That is an eighteen total."

"You check the door, and you are fairly certain it is not trapped," Patterson says with a straight face.

Rich raises an eyebrow, trying to decipher whether that means something was about to blow up or not. "Kurt, you're buff, want to open the door while we all stand back, you know, just in case?"

Kurt chuckles, but agrees with Rich, "Sure, it would not be a bad idea. Even if the door isn't trapped, we don't know what sort of dangers are lurking behind the door."

"Ok, so, we will say Kurt goes to open the door while everyone else is sidled up against the wall. Kurt you try the door, and it opens with no problem. It does not appear to be trapped, and looking inside you see a large rectangular room with single doors flanking either side. Ahead of you, you see a long stretch of hallway and what appears to be a bannister, the stairs leading up. As you look in, you notice something very strange. It seems as if all the lights are on, everything seems bright and cheery, besides the smell." Patterson wrinkles her nose instinctively, thinking about what that decay would actually smell like.

 _"Hey, guys, come on in. It doesn't look like a death trap at all,"_ Kurt says in his character's voice sarcastically. "I walk in, and wait for the others."

Reade says tentatively, "I will go in, but can I do one of those Investigation checks to see if I notice anything weird… well weirder than what has already been described?"

"Sure, go ahead and make a Perception check for me," Patterson says with a smile.

"That is a sixteen for Perception." Reade moves his character sheet out of the way so he can bring his notebook closer, waiting to write down anything extra he may find out.

"You do notice with that roll, while everything appears to be lit up as if someone has been living here, you look closer at the furniture, specifically an end table, and see that it is covered in dust. You walk over to a bench seat and run your finger across it, it comes back caked in dust. You get the feeling that if someone is living here currently, they aren't very good housekeepers." After Patterson describes the layout, she takes the second floor's foam board off of the first floor, quickly placing the pieces of paper over the undiscovered rooms. She also puts all of their miniatures, their normal ones, into what would be the foyer.

 _"Ok, there's tons of dust in here, so there may or may not be someone living here currently. Let's all do a sweep of the house and see what we come across,"_ Reade says to the group as his character.

 _"Copy. Left, right, or stairs first?"_ Kurt asks, moving his miniature to take point.

 _"Left, always left. Let's make sure to clear the lower level before going up the stairs. We don't want to be ambushed from behind,"_ Rich states in a low whisper and a serious look on his face.

"Well, you know shit got real when Rich doesn't even make a joke about being ambushed from behind," Tasha quips. _"Alright, I'm in. Let's go."_

"Taking the door on the left, you arrive in what looks to be a formal dining room. There is a nice solid wood table, with nine chairs seated around it. There are four plain chairs on each side, and one bigger, grander, chair with armrests sitting at the helm. You look over to the left and see a cabinet with antique china, and silverware that don't appear to be from this era. On the right-hand side, there is a French door, that looking through the glass panes leads to the kitchen." Patterson makes sure to move the papers off every room they discover, so they can see the diorama more clearly.

 _"Why don't we check out the whole house first, then do a secondary sweep? That way we can take more time to make sure we don't miss anything, and not be worried about enemies,"_ Jane's character suggests.

"I will nod towards Jane, and then head into the kitchen, motioning for everyone to follow." Kurt says stoically.

"Ok, you all make it into the kitchen. You see before you a really ginormous kitchen, fully outfitted with a long stretch of countertops stretching the length of the left-hand side of the room. In the middle of the room is a small island made out of wood and metal, the wood part seems to be decaying slightly. The appliances that are there, are very, very old. Across from where you walked in, you see another door, and with further investigation you find a pantry there. What you think were once meats, fruits, and veggies have all turned into grey mush and mold. To the right of the doors you entered, there is another set of French doors about halfway down the length of the wall.

Kurt nods to Patterson to continue. "You step through the doors and you notice you are at the back of the hallway you saw earlier from the foyer. Straight in front of you is the stairs, if you look diagonally to the left, you see another short hallway that appears to lead into another room." With yet another gesture from the group, Patterson continues on, removing the paper from a much larger room. "You walk into what could be called a 'den'. You see shelves made from real, thick, wood lining the left-hand side wall. On the shelves you see mainly books, which have seen better days. There are also a couple old pistols and a knife collection. Ahead of you, you see a fireplace with a couch and a few chairs gathered around it. In between the chairs lays what used to be an expensive, lavish, rug. The rug now has holes and the patterns have faded. There is one more door to the right of the room."

"Same deal," Kurt says, focusing on the diorama Patterson had painstakingly built. She had even included small miniature book models on the shelves.

"Through those doors, you find a sitting room. There's nothing here besides a few chairs. You see the door to the foyer to the right of you, you have now circled back around to the front of the house. Up the stairs now?" Once again, Kurt nods, so Patterson plows on, "You get upstairs with no problem, the bannister seems to be dilapidating a bit, but the stairs are still functional. You seem to be on a landing, with one door to your left, ahead of you are portraits on the wall of unsmiling people in dated dress. There is a taxidermy bear in the corner on the right-hand side, and on the right wall you see some rifles displayed proudly. The room on the left turns out to be a quaint bathroom, with only the bare necessities. As you walk along the wall looking at the portraits you see that there is another hallway running alongside the stairwell, with another door on the left side of the hallway about halfway down. You also see, across from the bear, there is a door leading to another room. Do you want to take the hallway, or the door?" Patterson asks.

Jane leans forward to look at the setup of the second floor that Patterson had set down when they were on the stairs. "Well, it looks like the door on the landing, across from this bear, may lead to a room with multiple doorways. We've already seen down the hallway and there's a door that leads to presumably the same area as this one. My vote is the hallway, let's see the whole layout of where this hallway leads first."

"Ok, I'm fine with that plan, but we need to stay spread out a bit in case something comes out of that particular room at us." Kurt says to Jane.

"Like what, a ghost?" Jane says with a raised eyebrow. "Fine, we can stay spread out, no big deal." She then gestures towards Patterson to continue.

"Down the hallway you go. You reach the end and see another hallway runs perpendicular to where you are currently standing. You see three doors ahead, one straight ahead, another at an angle off to the right, and one more at an angle off to the left. As you walk forward into this new hallway, you turn your head to see there is another door to the far right of you across from one of the doorways you saw just a moment ago. You turn to the left and see the same situation, meaning there's a possible third doorway to the room you bypassed."

"That's worrisome," Rich says as he bites his lip. "Let's check out the other doorways first and leave the three-door room for last."

The group agrees and they push on. "You start with the door straight ahead, there is a child's bedroom, filled with old dollies and wooden toys. The door to the right of that, is another bedroom. Across the hall, there is a smaller, third bedroom. You back-track down the hallway, past the other hallway you first walked through, towards the room with the three doors, before you go in there, you check the final doorway across from it. It too is a bedroom, this one seems to be around the same size as the other two along this wall, but it is outfitted in much finer furnishings. There is a rather large four poster bed, a chest at the end of it, a dresser off to the left, and a mirror off to the right. Beside the bed, flanking it on either side, are a pair of nightstands. Out of all the rooms you have seen, this appears to be a bedroom for adults. The last room you haven't seen is the one across the hall from this master bedroom. Do you proceed?"

"Oh man, oh man, oh man. Why haven't we found anyone yet?" Rich pulls at his hair anxiously. "Does it still smell up here?"

"Yes, it most definitely does. It's interesting, now that you think of it, you seem to remember as you walked past the room with the three doors, the smell got slightly more putrid anytime you were near." Patterson grins widely, "So, do you go in?"

"Yes, I open the door before Rich loses his hair," Kurt says with a wink towards Rich.

"Okay, you open the door with no problem. However, as you open the door, the wave of decay hits you hard. It seems this room has been shut up for a very long time with no ventilation. You walk in slightly, you see before you a library. There are the same wooden shelves lining the walls on three sides of the room. You look to the right and see that the only wall without shelves, has a desk sitting near it with a corpse. You step forward, peering closer at the corpse and you see that it has a very neat hole, about the size of a half dollar, through its skull. It looks like something had gone through this person's forehead, and out the back."

"How old does this corpse appear to be?" Jane asks, trying to hurriedly finish writing down the descriptions from Patterson.

"It's hard to tell. You think because the way this room has been sealed off, that it may have slowed down the decomposition time. There's still meat on the bones rotting off, but your best guess is that this corpse has been here a very, very, very long time."

"Ok, and you said it was sitting at a desk, right?" Jane says as she looks at her notes. "Do we see anything on the desk that would help us figure out who it is?"

"For this, I would say roll an Investigation check, since you are looking for something specific." Patterson nods sagely at Jane.

"Not bad, that is a twenty-one total!" Jane says loudly, while throwing a fist in the air.

Patterson chuckles, and let's Jane know that, "On the desk, you see some stationery that has an elaborate 'O' at the top of the paper, done in calligraphy. At the bottom of the sheets of paper, you see written, 'Dr. Oakford.' You also find a small seal stamp with the same letter 'O' as the letterhead. Looking through the letters on his desk, you just see things about his practice, you do find one that has the date scrawled on it, '1852'."

"Woah, this guy has been here a very long time, I let the group know what I found." Jane shakes her head in dismay. "Does that mean we are at the wrong place? If this is Dr. Oakford, who supposedly owns this house, who is it that we are chasing?"

"Maybe an imposter?" Reade supplies. "I mean, think about it, this place is out in the middle of nowhere. If the occupant died long ago, and no one is aware of it, it would make a nice hideout… if you don't mind the stench."

"True. And if you assumed the Oakford name, you could pass yourself off as a relative. You have everything you need here to forge some documents," Rich says miming stamping a letter.

"We should do a thorough investigation of the rest of the house. This feels like not everything is as it seems." Tasha absentmindedly bites her lip in thought, "Did we notice on the outside if it seemed like maybe there was a basement foundation below?"

Patterson shrugs, "I would say when you arrived you, saw the rock wall of the house, you did not look to see whether there may have been a difference in heights of the floor of the first level and what you saw outside. You're more than welcome to go back outside and look though."

Tasha hums before saying, "I will do that once we all go down to the first floor. I don't want to be too far away from the party."

"Ok, I would say two people roll for the group's investigation check. You're trying to go back over the second floor to see if you find anything of value or importance."

Jane and Reade look at each other and point, then give a thumbs up. They both roll and Reade ends up with a seventeen, where Jane unfortunately ends up with an eight.

"You find on this floor in what would be the master bedroom, an old black and white photo in a frame, sitting on one of the nightstands by the bed. In the photo you see a portly man with a huge smile, next to a petite, but stunning, woman. You know this is a special photo, because back in the 1800s it was sometimes rare to find a photo of people smiling. As you gaze upon the photo, you feel like the happiness from this couple is palpable. You look further down the frame to see the woman has a hand over her stomach. On the other night stand you find a journal, but when you pick it up you see that it is a diary. On the inside is inscribed _'Amelia Lane Oakford, 1852'_ and see that there are a few entries in the diary. You flip to the last page that is written in a hastily scrawled hand, _'I don't know what is happening, all I know is my dear Mr. Oakford said I had to take the kids and leave for America immediately. He said something about a demon in the house, and that we were not safe. I pleaded with him to come too, but he would not leave his family's estate. He said he would get no rest from beyond the grave if he did not do all he could in the here and now to protect the family's legacy. We are to arrive in Boston, then telegraph the local town to relay the message of our safe travels, so that he can then procure his own ship ticket to join us. I fear he is just saying this ensure our departure, but time will tell. We are off tonight, and I hope we will be reunited again soon.'_ " Patterson then hands Reade the reproduction of the journal page. "The chest at the end of the bed has one red vial, with a liquid that looks very familiar, you think it may be some kind of healing draft. That is all you find on this upper floor, besides random kid toys and old clothing that are moth eaten."

"Time to go downstairs, gang?" Kurt asks.

"Yeah, I suppose so… I know this is just a game, but my heart hurts for this family. Do you know how scary that must have been for her? Herself and what looks like up to three children. I know this instance isn't real, but I can't help but think that some people in the past encountered similar fates." Jane shakes her head, trying to clear the thought from her mind. Kurt's reassuring squeeze right above her knee helps immensely.

Patterson smiles warmly before proceeding, "Alright, you go back downstairs. Same thing as last time, two people search the downstairs with investigation checks, and Tasha you can do a Perception check outside if you still want to."

"Oh, I do!" Tasha says excitedly. "I rolled an eighteen total."

"Ok, you think you notice that there may be some kind of lower level. Though given how long ago this house was built, it could just be a crawlspace, you're not really sure." Patterson pauses for a moment then adds, "I will say that if the group chooses to, you can have only one person roll an investigation check, but with advantage. You now would have some extra knowledge about the house structure from Tasha."

Reade gestures an open hand to Jane, and in a very sincere voice says, "I think you should take this one. For Amelia."

Jane smiles and mouths "Thank you" to Reade. Jane rolls twice and takes the higher of the two, "Holy crap, that would be a twenty-three. That advantage was clutch, my first roll was a two."

"You walk through the house turning everything over you can, you know that there may be some kind of lower level possibly beneath the floor. Right before you give up and try to pry up a floorboard to look beneath, your eye catches the rug in the den. Even in its decomposing state, something about it just seems off to you, like it raises up a little in the middle. You wouldn't notice it walking around, but you have been on your hands and knees trying to find any inconsistencies. You walk over to the rug and pull it back slowly…" Patterson pauses for a moment.

"AND?!" Jane shouts

"And you find a trap door, that may lead to a lower level!" Patterson says loudly before making a trumpet noise with her mouth. "Before we investigate this, I think we should take a quick bathroom and snack break. I need some refueling."


	10. Chapter 10: Something Wicked This Way

Something Wicked This Way... Lives?

Patterson stretches as she walks out of the bathroom, pausing at the doorway to the living room. She looks across the main room of her small apartment and sees that everyone has already gotten their refreshments, and have sat back down at the table all in the time it took her to use the facilities. "Wow, did you guys go into ludicrous speed, or what? I wasn't even gone for more than, like, three minutes," Patterson says with a laugh as she continues into the kitchen, refilling her own drinks and snacks for the second half of the night.

"The carrot has been dangled, so we are obediently awaiting the arrival of our illustrious DM; so we can finally find out what lies beneath the trap door!" Rich says with a huge smile, that unnervingly remains plastered on his face until Patterson rejoins them at the table a couple minutes later.

Tasha reaches over to rub Rich's nose, "Hmm, weird, this brown stuff won't come off. Do you guys all see it too?"

"Ha, ha, very funny. You'll be wishing you had done the same when we find out what is beneath that trap door. It may be the difference between life and death for your character," Rich says solemnly.

Patterson tilts her head towards Rich, shaking it slightly, as she says, "Rich, you know I don't play like that."

Rich returns the gesture, "I know, I know, a guy can dream though, can't he?" For good measure, he winks at Patterson as well, eliciting an eye roll from his Dungeon Master.

"Anyways… since everyone is raring to go, let's get back into tonight's game." Patterson rubs her hands together excitedly, "So, where we left off was Jane figuring out there was a trap door in the den, thanks to the help of the group. You all converge on the trap door, what would you like to do?"

"I want to open the door…" Jane starts to say before she is interrupted by Rich.

"We need to check for traps! It's a _trap_ door after all," Rich yells, throwing his hands out across the table like he is trying to face off against three raptors.

Patterson tries hard not to laugh at Rich, and instead says, "Ok, you can certainly try to check the trap door for traps."

"Well, I didn't mean _me_ per se, I meant the group," Rich says as he trails off.

"That's something I'm good at as a Rogue, I'll check for traps." Tasha pulls back out her character sheet and looks to see what modifiers to add before rolling her die. "That would be a seventeen total."

Patterson nods her head once and shrugs her shoulders, "You don't think it appears to be trapped."

"Nothing has actually been trapped this entire time. I say we just open it and go down there," Reade states as he leans toward the table.

Rich immediately chucks his pencil across the table at Reade, whispering harshly, "Do NOT antagonize her, that's how you get a TPK, and you don't want a TPK!"

"TPK?" Reade asks, confusion making his eyebrows pinch together.

"Total. Party. Kill. Meaning every single one of our characters dies. Patterson may be nice enough to let this transgression go, but some Dungeon Masters wouldn't. Just like you don't go out into the woods and poke a bear, you don't poke the DM." Rich shakes his head emphatically at Reade to drive the point home.

"Ok, sorry, I didn't realize that was a thing. I was just trying to say that the last couple of times we checked for traps it was to no avail." Reade shrugs his shoulders in submission, turning back to Patterson to see what happens next.

"Jane, you go ahead and open the trap door." Patterson pauses for a couple beats before adding, "Nothing happens. The door was not trapped or locked. It swings open showing a staircase going down at a decline towards the east, for reference the fireplace is on the East wall of this first floor den." Patterson gestures with her hands, letting the group know they are to step in and say what they would like to do.

"We go down," Jane states after looking to the rest of the group.

"Alright, let me go get the map." Patterson gets up from the table and heads over to the oven, opening up the warming tray in order to pull out the dungeon map.

"I thought you said a mouse died, and that's why we had to wash all our trays we normally store in there?" Tasha asks with an eyebrow raised at her girlfriend.

"I _may_ have embellished a little. I mean, I'm sure a mouse has died in there at some point… just not recently. Plus those trays needed a deep clean." Patterson winks and applies a smile to her face that she knows will melt the heart of Tasha.

"Uh huh, I will remember this the next time you want me to clean something. It will be your turn." Tasha points a finger at Patterson for emphasis, but after a second, mirrors Patterson's smile. "So, now that we have the map, can we place our miniatures?"

The group places their miniatures going down the trapdoor staircase, the order is Kurt, Tasha, Reade, Jane, and Rich. It's a very tight fit since this stretch of the map is not very long. They very nearly already reach the edge of the paper, denoting how far ahead they can see.

Patterson moves the paper back a little bit, showing the group that the staircase leads into a short hallway that comes to a 'T' intersection at the end. "As you walk down the staircase, some of the boards creak beneath your weight, dust billowing up from them with each step. Others start to splinter and you think that if you were to stand here too long, the whole thing may collapse. This small hallway leads into a cross section at the end, leading left and right, ahead you can see the exterior rock foundation. It is a small enough hallway in here that you are in a single line, the intersection you can see looks like it may be wide enough for two to walk side by side."

"Well, this isn't a death trap at all," Rich quips.

Kurt shakes his head at Rich and turns to Patterson, "I guess, let's go left."

"No! Right! Let's go right!" Rich yells, leaning towards the table.

"What?! The last time you said to go left, always choose left," Kurt says in dismay, wondering why they followed Rich's lead the last time.

"Well, you know, we're underground now. It's like being in Australia, so left is right. Let's go right." Rich pauses and notices everyone staring at him dumbfounded, "Look, it's not science, but my gut is telling me to go right."

"Ahh, the Gibbs gut check," Kurt says with a smile. "We can go to the right this time instead."

"As you all step forward, Kurt you feel a slight depression in the floor, followed by a 'click' sound. Just as you start to look down you hear a huge crashing sound. You all look behind you and to your horror, you see that big blocks of stone start coming down from the ceiling, like dominoes. They are quickly getting closer to you guys, I need you all to roll a Dexterity save to see if you can get into the hallway beyond before it is too late.

Patterson lets the group know where to find their save modifier for Dexterity on their sheet, and before too long she has heard back from everyone. The whole group made their save, which she had set the difficulty relatively easy, but with the obelisks still coming down there was not enough room for them to all jump out into the same side of the hallway. The party was split as the final pillars shot down into the cross-section of the hallway, separating the right from the left. The ones who jumped to the right were Kurt, Jane, and Rich. The ones who had jumped left were Tasha and Reade.

"You guys are completely cut off from each other now. You turn around to see if you can budge the stone pillars behind you, but they weigh more than you could even dream of lifting." Patterson tries hard, and fails, to keep the smile off of her face. She knew for a long time that she was going to have at least one trap that was actually a trap, just to keep her friends on their toes.

"I want to turn around and try to yell at them, _'Hey, you guys'_ ," Rich says with a chuckle.

"You yell that, and you hear your voice bounce off the many walls surrounding you. Tasha and Reade, you do hear a muffled yell, but you cannot discern what it was that was said. What you do hear is a slight scraping sound coming from somewhere in the distance, but you can't pinpoint where." After a brief pause and no one else speaking up to do something, Patterson continues describing their surroundings, "We will start with the right side first. Kurt, Jane, Rich, you all are in a hallway facing the south, at the end of the hallway it makes a ninety degree turn towards the west. There is a small half circle outcropping where a torch is on the wall, unlit, and covered in cobwebs. You notice that there is functioning electricity, so the purpose of the torch is unknown. What would you like to do?" Patterson asks, once again putting on 'the mask' of Dungeon Master, so that her friends cannot read her face.

"Can I inspect the Torch? Does it seem magical? Also, I know this is retconning, but how did big stone slabs of rock come down from a ceiling that we were just recently standing on from above?" Rich asks as politely as he can muster.

Patterson wiggles her fingers as she says, "Magic." After a round of sticking their tongue out at each other she adds, "Also roll an Investigation check to see what you notice about the torch."

Rich rolls his eyes and looks at his sheet, after rolling his die he reluctantly says, "Ten."

"It is most definitely a torch… It seems to have a faint magical aura around it, but nothing you can pinpoint. It does not appear to be harmful to you, in its current state," Patterson drops her voice really low for that last addition, just to watch Rich squirm.

"Great! Not going to die. At all. Nope. Onward!" Rich jokes as he sets the die aside that rolled poorly for him.

Patterson waits for agreement from Jane and Kurt before proceeding, "You guys walk down the hallway and as you reach the end, you turn to your right. As soon as you pass the torch, it lights up with a green flame. You hear rock shifting from ahead of you, close by. As you take another step forward, trying to figure out where the noise is coming from, you see that the wall beside you has an square rock room, inset within the stone. Just moments ago, you could have sworn this whole wall was perfectly sound, but now there is a four foot wide berth. As you come to the realization that this room has just been uncovered, a bony creature strikes out at you from the darkness, you catch the hint of a sword gleaming through the air as it tries to strike you, Kurt." Patterson rolls twice, since the skeleton surprised her players it would have advantage on the strike. "Does a twenty hit?"

"Ouch, just barely! Just the one wound, correct?" Kurt asks as he gets his pencil out to write down the adjustment on his character sheet.

"Yes, just the one hit. Now, I'll have you three roll some Initiative." Patterson says as she adjusts some of her papers behind her screen. After receiving their numbers, she pens down the initiative order of: Jane, Kurt, Skeleton, Rich. "Ok, Jane, you're up. What would you like to do?"

"If this is just a skeleton, I don't think shooting it will do me much good. I'm going to try to take his sword away so he can't hit us anymore.

"Ok, roll an Athletics check," Patterson says, as she rolls the same check for the skeleton, which ends up being a total of three after the horrible strength modifier.

"I rolled a fifteen," Jane says as she bites her lip, hoping that was enough.

"You take that sword away from the skeleton, but along with it comes its hand and arm up until the elbow. You fling it off of the sword and it just goes crawling down the hallway. That was your action to take it away, if there isn't anything else you would like to do, Kurt it will be your turn." Patterson makes a note that one of the skeletons is now missing an arm.

"I want to just punch it in the skull, specifically trying to knock its head off of its spine," Kurt says with an authoritative tone. He rolls his die, and adds his attack modifier for an 'Unarmed Strike' from his character sheet, then tells Patterson, "That would be a whopping twenty-two!"

"Nice! Yeah, you knock his head clean off. As you do so, the whole skeletal body just crumbles to the floor. You look in this room, but it is bare. Only stone walls and floors, nothing else. You look further down the hallway and see that it leads straight down further, but you cannot see the end, it gets oddly dark the further down this hallway you go. About ten feet in front of you, you also see that there is an opening to go to the right, which you do see some faint light coming from. Think about what you would like to do, and we will switch over to the left side where Tasha and Reade are at currently."

Rich speaks up first before they can get started, "Point of order, I do want to try to yell into the cavern to Tasha and Reade, because let's face it whatever is down here already knows we are here, that _'THERE ARE SKELETONS IN HERRRRRRRRRE'_." Rich elongates the 'r' sound in 'here' for as long as he has breath in his lungs.

Patterson laughs heartily, "They do hear that, although somewhat faint. Reade, Tasha, hearing that you prepare yourself for a skeleton at some point. You notice that soon after you were split from the other group, the torch at the end of your own hallway flickered green. You also heard a stone moving somewhere, and as you start to walk forward carefully, you see a sword sticking out from around the corner. It doesn't move any further at the moment, would you like to do something?"

"Wait, so let me get this straight. There is a sword sticking out around the corner, but we do not see who is holding it?" Reade asks, standing up to get a better vantage point of the map. Once receiving confirmation of that from Patterson, he turns to Tasha, "Want to team up? I can go for a grab of the sword if you want to go in swinging?"

Tasha nods excitedly, "Fuck. Yes. Let's rough him up!"

"In this, I would say you each make a roll. Reade, you will be doing an Athletics check, Tasha you will be doing an Unarmed Strike. Given the circumstance, normally yours would be at disadvantage, but with Reade there quasi-helping you, just do a straight roll." Once Patterson gets those numbers from her friends, fourteen from Reade and fifteen from Tasha, she lets them know that, "You have most definitely got the sword away from the skeleton, and at the same exact time, Tasha you whirled around the corner and clocked it in the head, snapping his neck. This skeleton also falls to the ground, as it does, one of its arms skitters off down the hallway. You walk around the corner to see a small open room, with nothing inside, further down the hallway you see that it leads into darkness. On the left hand side, you see a hallway about ten feet in front of you, a faint light coming from it."

"We walk down the hallway and turn left, as we do I will call out _'Hey, where are you guys? Marco?'_ " Reade says with a smirk on his face.

Patterson looks over to Kurt, Jane, and Rich, who all nod back, "Ok, you guys meet up in the middle. What you see as you are looking at each other from either side of the room is off to the west there is a large curved stone wall, with a wooden double door in the middle, beside which stand two skeletons who each have one arm handcuffed to the wall. You see two additional, separated, arms trying to scrabble up the door of their own accord, as if they are trying to get inside. Off to the east, which is in the direction the stairs were, is a single door built into the wall. The walls surrounding this door are made out of wood and more in line with what you thought you would find in a basement."

"More of them?!" Rich says in shock, "Are these ones moving or just standing still at the moment?"

"Right now they are not moving, they each are just standing there as if decor, with one arm raised up high in a shackle tied to the wall," Patterson explains.

"Ok, we should start to go forward but warily. If any sort of movement from the skeletons happen, we swing away. If they don't move, we should check out the door to the east. It sounds like the safer of the two doors." Rich stands up and moves his miniature across the map, waiting to see if Patterson says anything about the skeletons, and when she doesn't he finishes his movement at the east door. "I would like to check the door for traps," Rich says as he rolls for the Investigation check that requires.

"Do you all follow suit?" With nods from the rest of the group, Patterson moves all of their miniatures behind Rich. "What did you roll?"

"Not great, only a twelve," Rich says in a grim voice.

"You don't think it is trapped, it seems like it is pretty rotten and falling apart. Do you go ahead and open it?" Receiving a small nod of his head, Patterson continues on, "You open up the door and it disintegrates into dust. No harmful effect except for a dust cloud that makes you cough a bit. Looking into this odd shaped room, you can see the backside of the skeleton rooms as well as the backside of the curved hallway feature you walked past. Strewn about this room seems to be random boxes, paintings, old canned goods, pop, etcetera. If you would like to make an Investigation check to see if there's anything of use here, either have two people roll, or one with advantage."

"Rich, why don't you go ahead and roll with advantage, see if we can find you some glory in this campaign," Kurt says with a warm smile.

"Are you teasing me?" Rich asks defensively.

"I'm really not. You should take the roll this time, we've been relying on the girls too much. Your time to shine. Go on, let's see what you find for us."

Rich beams as he picks up his lucky die, "Okay, I knew that, I was just checking." He rolls his die twice and jumps up from the table breaking into a shuffling dance as he sings "Natural twenty, baby." This elicits hearty laughter from the group as a whole, as well as a round of high fives and congratulations for Rich.

Patterson dramatically pulls out a notecard and waves it back and forth from behind the DM screen, "For that amazing roll, you have found this!" She hands Rich the notecard, "Bullets of Wounding! Game terms, they do an additional wound of damage when they hit. There are only three bullets in the box, so plan accordingly."

"Ok, just so we have better odds, I'm going to keep one and give the other two to Jane and Tasha. I feel like more than likely they may be a little further back or at least be able to dodge things better, giving them a better chance at surviving long enough to shoot their gun. Sorry boys," Rich adds at the end as an afterthought.

"No problem, you're probably right. I have the highest Armor Class, so I will probably try to get in his face at some point if a fight happens," Kurt says as he shrugs nonchalantly back at Rich. "So, do we check the hallways that just led into darkness or just go through the door we see in front of us?"

"I think we should definitely walk down the hallways first, just in case. We don't want to have unknown attackers come at us in the heat of the battle," Tasha responds.

The group murmurs their agreement and turns to Patterson to continue on. "Alright, you go down the hallway on the north. It's odd, as soon as you pass the entranceway you used to come into this room, it is pitch black. As you walk, you cannot see or hear anything. You all walk for a couple minutes, and no change. What would you like to do?"

"Can we keep walking? This house isn't that big, it has to have an end soon, right?" Tasha asks, looking around the table at her friends.

"You all keep walking for another minute, two, five, still nothing," Patterson states.

"Okay, what if we turn around and go back where we came from?" Tasha is thoroughly puzzled at this point. She knows the size of the mansion from when they were upstairs and it shouldn't have even taken a minute to walk to the edge of the house.

"You all turn around and with three big steps, you are back in the lighted hallway," Patterson smiles and shrugs at the group.

"Let's do the same on the other side," Reade interjects. "But, this time after a couple minutes if we still don't get anywhere, we turn around and come back."

Patterson nods, "Same thing happens, you walk down the hallway on the south, and after a couple minutes it still remains pitch black and eerily quiet. You guys turn around and with a few steps, you are back in the lighted hallway. You see the same unmoving skeletons by the doorway."

Jane rubs her jawline with a contemplative gesture, then says, "I'm going to go up to the skeletons and see if they move. If they do anything to harm me, I want to punch them."

"As you walk forward, the skeletons both turn their heads to look directly at you. Their jaws open, and a horrendous scream pierces the silence all around you. You then hear disembodied voices saying, _'Leave. Get out. Run.'_ Other than that, they do not move, nor show any sort of reaction to you." Patterson shrugs when the rest of the group eyes her cautiously.

"That's not disconcerting at all, are you guys sure we still want to go in there?" Rich asks. "I mean, I'm ready to if you are, it just seems like something major is going to be going on."

"We have to defeat the bad guy. We cannot let him win. Let's form up and head in," Kurt states, just as if they were at a sting operation in real life.

Patterson pipes in before anyone else can get another word in, "As soon as you say your intent, the heavy wooden door opens with a loud _'BOOM'_. From within the same voice as at Shakespeare's Globe says, _'Enter, cowards.'_ "

"We stand tall and walk in, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious." Kurt stands up and leans forward in order to move his miniature through the door on the map.

"You all walk in, nothing immediately happens. Instead, as you walk in, you look around and see you have a single, large, curved stone wall from the rock wall foundation. It's about the shape of a three point line in basketball. The walls are smooth, with no decorations on them, no torches. Ahead of you, at the base, you see a large marble altar, where your foe stands. You aren't sure what kind of magic is going on here, but the ceilings seem to be about fifty feet high, your foe stands about fifteen feet high himself." As Patterson finishes her sentence, she gets out her large miniature that she had hidden behind the screen. They see a towering figure, wrapped up in what appears to be green flames near the base of the sculpture, travelling up his skeletal-like body. "Go ahead and place yourselves where you think you would have walked in to."

The group places themselves strategically. Kurt being the point, and then a 'V' formation with Jane and Reade flanking him on either side, then Rich and Tasha behind them, all about five feet away from their nearest ally.

As they get done placing their miniatures, Patterson tells them to go ahead and roll some Initiative and writes down what order they will be going in: Bad guy, Tasha, Jane, Reade, Kurt, and then Rich. As soon as she gets done writing that down, Patterson immediately breaks out into the evil voice from earlier _"Three, two, one, FIGHT!"_

Everyone at the table is startled by the loud, downright creepy, voice, their eyes fly open as they look around at each other. They did not think their foe was going to be going first since Tasha rolled very high on her own Initiative, a twenty-one.

Patterson grins maniacally at her friend's reaction to the boss going first in the fight. "You see him attempt to smile as he rears back and throws his hand forward, like he is about to try and punch you from across the room, but right at the end of the motion, you see instead a glowing green orb of energy streaking straight at you, Kurt." Patterson rolls her die to see if the Firebolt will beat Kurt's nineteen AC, which it does. "Kurt you feel hot flames lick across your chest as you got hit, hard. You take a wound. As you are feeling the effects of that, he continues his motion downward and slams his fist into the ground between your group and himself. You watch as small fissures start to show up in the floor, but it seems to be stable for now. As he raises himself back up he says in a disgusted voice, _'Your race will never again forget the name of Vecna. I will rule all worlds.'_ " Patterson looks over to Tasha and nods in her direction, letting her know it is her turn.

"I want to run around the wall towards the base, so I can split up a little from the rest of the group. I've already loaded Bullet of Wounding into my chamber, and I'm going to try and take a shot." Tasha double checks that she doesn't add anything special for the bullets and rolls her die, "Seventeen?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. That just misses," Patterson says with a sad smile. "You watch as your bullet went towards him, but went just wide of his head, lead spraying off the wall on the far side across from you. Jane, you're up."

"I think that's a good plan that Tasha did, so I'm going to execute the same one, but this time along the wall to my left," Jane says as she stands up to move her miniature along. "I also want to make sure I'm not directly across from Tasha in case I miss. I'm also going to try and shoot a Bullet of Wounding at this guy… that would be an eighteen," Jane says as she examines the top number on her d20 die.

"That barely hits. His armor class is eighteen, you guys may want to mark that down so you remember the number you have to hit. He takes two wounds thanks to that, which he is _not_ happy about. His eyes shift focus to you and he snarls in your direction. Reade, you're up."

"I'm going to stay more or less where I'm at, maybe just another ten feet towards Tasha. I also want to try and avoid the cracks in the floor if I can. I'm going to take a shot as well, and I would like to hide behind something if there is any cover in this room," he says as he rolls his die for the shot. "Damn it, fifteen."

"Sorry, Reade. Your shot goes wide, but does not ricochet into anyone else. It gets lodged in the rock wall foundation. As for cover, there is none to be had. This room is entirely bare except for the altar Vecna is standing on." Patterson adjusts Reade's miniature to where he wanted it placed at, and looks towards Kurt expectantly.

"I want to rush him, I know I have 2 wounds but I would much rather he focus on me who is harder to hit. I will shoot at him on my way." Kurt doesn't even look up as his friends protest the choice, he rolls the die and smiles, "That is a natural twenty! He should be blasted into smithereens!"

Patterson smiles sadly at Kurt, she really doesn't like to burst bubbles. "That is an amazing hit, and Vecna takes two wounds. Just as you start celebrating, thinking you have downed your foe, he stands up taller and just laughs. You get the feeling that he is a harder enemy than any you have encountered before. You are now close enough to Venca to reach out and touch him. That will conclude your turn; Rich, you are up next."

Rich takes a moment before speaking, "On my sheet, there is Cure Wounds. If I cast that, can I also take a shot at this Vecna asshole?"

"No, it is an action to cast that; you can either heal or shoot. Keep in mind because of the different damage system I'm using this game, Cure Wounds only heals one wound, or brings someone back from unconsciousness," Patterson explains.

Rich sighs heavily, weighing his options, "Sorry Kurt, but I have to do this, _'Pew Pew...well just Pew, actually'_ and then I want to run towards the left about halfway to Jane, staying near the curved wall." Rich also rolls his die, and is lucky enough for it be just barely enough to hit.

"Vecna takes another wound, he is hurt, but still okay. It's going to take a bit more of a beat down on him. That takes us to Vecna's turn. A lot of you have hurt him, but there is one right in front of him," Patterson sucks in a deep breath before continuing, "Vecna is going to try to slam you into the ground with his fist, Kurt." Patterson rolls her die, and unfortunately rolls a twenty-two for her attack roll due to Vecna's strength. "You all watch as Kurt is crushed beneath Vecna's giant hand, as the hand comes back up, you see that the cracks start to get much larger, with pieces falling away into an abyss below. A few pieces around Kurt start to crumble and fall away. Vecna then looks up to all of you and smiles, showing all of his teeth as well as tearing some of the flesh mask that has been covering his face. He stretches out his hand towards you, does a clutching gesture, and yanks it back towards him. As he does, the curved wall some of you are standing near suddenly slides forward about ten feet. Putting you all even close to the crumbling floor, the void, and Vecna himself." Patterson watches as her friends are stunned into silence, she solemnly nods towards Tasha.

"Fuck this! I want to run up and make Kurt drink the last potion I have. Can I then move him? Or is he just going to be there until his turn?" Tasha asks with clipped words.

"You can definitely feed him the potion, but you would only be able to drag him about five feet or so. Keep in mind, he will have his turn before Vecna goes again, if that makes a difference on how you play this." After receiving a confirmation from Tasha for feeding the potion, but then running back towards her original spot, Patterson continues on, "Kurt you gain two hits back, so you are currently sitting at one wound, but you are prone on the ground for now. Jane, you're up."

"I would like to take another shot, I don't want to go any closer with the floor falling away into nothingness." Jane rolls her die, but unfortunately rolls too low to hit.

Reade remembers his place in the initiative order and perks up, "I want to go stand behind Vecna if I can, and try to shoot him in the knee as I go. I want to try to cripple him a bit." Reade rolls his die, and luckily he just barely makes the benchmark to hit.

"Vecna yells out in pain as one of his kneecaps just explodes, painting the rock foundation behind him in this green gelatinous ichor. He is starting to look a little rough, he has taken quite a bit of damage from you guys. Reade, you are able to make it behind him, avoiding the holes in the floor. Kurt, you're up. It will be half your movement to stand up, but then you can do what you would like." Patterson lets out a pent up breath she had stored away, she was a little worried, and still is, that there may be a character death before the night is over.

Kurt nods, mulling over his options, "I want to stand up, and aim at his other kneecap, point blank."

"Go ahead and roll with advantage, since you are close enough to basically put your gun directly on his knee," Patterson deems.

After Kurt rolls twice, the first roll being a two, and the other is a nineteen, "I will gladly take that nineteen, and blow his other knee out."

"You most definitely do. You watch as the fifteen foot high Vecna comes crashing down onto his knees, snarling the whole way down. The madder he has gotten, the brighter the left eye socket has become. Do you want to move?"

"I think I will just move off a little bit towards the altar so I'm not directly on the crumbling ground," Kurt says with a grin.

"Good plan, Rich you're next."

"I am going to go ahead and try to take another shot at him, I feel like he is getting really hurt by now" Rich says excitedly. "That is an eighteen! I hit! I HIT!"

Patterson smiles, "You hit Vecna near the left torso, and watch as a huge hole is now visible, you can see some of the rock wall through it… but he is still alive."

"Ok, well, I pee a little, and then that's my turn," Rich says with a dry laugh.

"Vecna's eye socket starts pulsing bright green, growing brighter, and brighter, until he lets out an acid spray in all directions. Filling the room with a noxious odor, and it starts to eat away any particles of clothing it lands on. I need everyone to make a DEX saving throw." Patterson hears back from the group, and unfortunately Jane, Kurt, and Rich all failed. "Reade and Tasha, you take one wound as the odor burns your nose and throat as you breathe. Jane, Kurt, and Rich, you all take two wounds as you got hit directly with the acid. He is also going to pound the floor again, knocking loose even more of the stable points. There is now a ten by ten foot wide gaping hole in the floor directly in front of him, you have no idea where it goes… That was the top of the order, so Tasha, you're up and hurting. You have just watched as Kurt took acid straight to the chest and is crumpled on the floor directly behind Vecna."

"I'm just going to fire away, I don't have any way to help him," Tasha says in dismay, rolling her die to hopefully take care of this demon killing her friends. "Fuck. Nope, that is a thirteen. I stay where I'm at, as far away from him as I can be."

Jane looks over to Kurt, "I can heal you, or myself, or I can try to roll the dice and get a hit in. I don't know what to do." Jane's eyes start to tear up a bit at the thought of her Kurt, the real Kurt, being in a life or death situation.

Kurt rests a hand on her arm, "Heal yourself. It's ok, just heal yourself."

Reade interjects as well, "I know this is out of turn, and probably not allowed, but I plan on running to him and giving him the vial I found in the house. I agree with Kurt, you should heal yourself."

Jane nods and turns to Patterson, "I take my healing draft as my action, so I can get back up to full health. I stay put as well, maybe wave my arms in his direction to get the big guy to focus on me."

Patterson makes a note that Jane is now fully healed and looks over towards Reade, waiting patiently.

Reade takes his cue and speaks up, "I grab the vial I found in the house, run over to Kurt, and drain it into his mouth."

Patterson gives a toothy grin, she had wondered if anyone was going to actually use this treasure or not. "When you run past, Vecna turns his head to watch you appear next to your fallen comrade. As you pour the liquid into his mouth, you feel a strange sensation in your own body as well. You watch as Kurt's eyes open, the acid burns healing immediately, and you think he may even be at full health." Patterson then turns to Kurt and stage whispers, "You are." Then turns back to Reade continuing her explanation, "You are filled with such vigor from watching your friend come back from almost sure death, to full health, that you feel energized enough to have one more action. Everyone else watching this also sees your form, Reade, blinking rapidly, your clothing changing colors and a slight yellow light undulating off of your body."

"You said he was now looking in my direction with Kurt, right? I want to try and shoot him in the left eye socket!" After receiving an approving nod from Patterson, Reade rolls his die, and throws his hands up in the air, "EIGHTEEN!"

Patterson has a rush of emotions, she tries to tamp them down so she can explain what has now happened, "Everyone watches as Reade has just brought Kurt back to life, his form starting to glow and flicker like Mario getting a star power, as he pulls out his gun and leans back, waiting for the most opportune time, and BAM! Reade shoots Vecna in the left eye socket. Vecna then starts screaming at the top of his lungs, _'You may have defeated me on this plane because of my weakened state, but let's see how you fare on a different one.'_ And with that, Vecna disappears into a cloud of green smoke, leaving nothing behind." Patterson pauses for a second, to let her friends revel in their supposed defeat of Vecna, after a couple minutes, she quiets the group down and continues, "As you all stand around, trying to piece together what he meant by 'how you fare on a different one,' you all feel this pulling sensation at the center of your being, as if you are being sucked up by a gigantic vacuum. You all look around at your comrades, and the last thing you see is the fading light of the crypt you were just in before everything fades to black... And that, is where we will end this starting campaign." Patterson ends with a huge smile on her face, but looks around to see nothing but shock on her friends' faces.

"What. The. Fuck?!" Rich yells. "You can't leave us hanging like that! That can't be the end!"

"Believe it or not, I agree with Rich," Kurt says with a nod as he leans towards the table. "We got him off of Earth, I think, but apparently he is off somewhere else now? Like in outer space? On another planet?"

To Patterson's surprise, it is actually Reade who speaks up next, "Wait, you said this ended the _starting_ campaign, so, there's going to be more?" Reade can't hide the hope in his voice as he asks this question.

Patterson still is grinning ear to ear as she lets them know, "Yes, if you guys want to continue on, then we most certainly can, and if you do, the training wheels will be off. If that is the route everyone wants to go, we can take a little time off and go back to other games for game night, so I have time to prepare _a whole new world_." Patterson ends with a cocked eyebrow, trying to gauge her friend's reaction to a new campaign setting that is more traditional than what they ran through this time.

Once again, it is Reade who speaks up first, "Yes, please. We need to figure out where Vecna went and defeat him for good. That guy is bad news."

The group all agree with Reade's sentiments and they all are on board with a new, more normal, campaign. They all start to get their things gathered, as it has yet again been another late night. On their way out the door, each of them stop to give their thanks to Patterson for running such a fun game, and for introducing them to the wonderful world of Dungeons & Dragons.


End file.
